LIBRARY] 

UNIVERSITV*OF 
CALIFORNIA 

SAN  Dl EG© 


presented  to  the 
UNIVERSITY  LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
SAN  DIEGO 

by 

Robert  F.  Lewis 


THE  NEW  WORLD-LIFE 


BY  THE  SAME  AUTHOR 

MY  RELIGION  IN  EVERYDAY  LIFE 
THE  CHALLENGE  OF  THE  CITY 
THE  NEXT  GREAT  AWAKENING 
THE  TIMES  AND  YOUNG  MEN 

EXPANSION  UNDER  NEW  WORLD 
CONDITIONS 

RELIGIOUS  MOVEMENTS  FOR  SO- 
CIAL BETTERMENT 

THE  NEW  ERA 
OUR  COUNTRY 


OUR    WORLD 


THE  NEW  WORLD-LIFE 


BY 

REV.  JOSIAH  STRONG,  D.D., 

AUTHOR  OF  "OuR  COUNTRY,"  "THE  NEW  ERA,"  "EXPANSION  UNDER 
NEW  WORLD  CONDITIONS,"  ETC.,  ETC. 


"Scoop  down  yon  beetling  mountain,  and  raise- thai  jutting  cape, 
A  world  is  on  your  anvil,  now  smite  it  into  shape. 
What  is  this  iron  music  whose  sound  is  borne  afar  1 
The  hammers  of  the  world-smiths  are  beating  out  a  star." 


GARDEN  CITY  NEW  YORK 

DOUBLEDAY,    PAGE    &    COMPANY 
1913 


Copyright,  1913,  by 

DOUBLEDAY,  PAGE  &  COMPANY 

All  rights  reserved,  including  that  of 

translation  into  foreign  languages, 

including  the  Scandinavian 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTEB  PAGE 

INTRODUCTION ,        vii 

PART  I 

THE  NEW  WORLD-LIFE 

I.  A  NEW  WORLD-TENDENCY    ....  3 

II.  A  NEW  WORLD-INDUSTRY    ....  19 

III.  A  NEW  WORLD-PEACE 37 

IV.  A  NEW  WORLD-IDEAL 53 

PART  II 
THE  NEW  WORLD-PROBLEMS 

V.     THE  NEW  PROBLEM  OF  INDUSTRY        .        87 

VI      THE  NEW  PROBLEM  OF  WEALTH    .     .      126 

VII.     THE  NEW  RACE  PROBLEM     ....      159 

VIII.     THE  NEW  PROBLEM  OF  THE  INDIVIDUAL 

AND  SOCIETY 176 

IX.     THE  NEW  PROBLEM  OF  LAWLESSNESS 

AND  OF  LEGISLATION   ....      203 

X.     THE  NEW  PROBLEM  OF  THE  CITY   .     .      228 
INDEX 285 


INTRODUCTION 

"OuR  COUNTRY"  appeared  in  1886.  An  American 
in  India  wrote  me  after  reading  it,  "I  hope  your  next 
book  will  be  entitled  'Our  World.'"  Here  it  is;  and  I 
have  been  at  work  on  it  during  all  these  years. 

"Our  Country"  pointed  out  a  national  crisis  and 
discussed  certain  national  perils.  "Our  World"  calls 
attention  to  a  world-crisis,  and  considers  certain  world- 
problems  which,  unless  they  are  duly  solved,  will  be- 
come imminent  world-perils. 

During  historic  times,  when  social  or  economic 
pressure  has  forced  a  crisis,  there  has  always  been 
until  now  an  escape  by  migration.  But  No  Man's 
Land  has  been  exhausted;  there  are  no  more  New 
Worlds.  The  problems  which  come  with  increasing 
density  of  population  can  no  longer  be  evaded. 

When,  in  the  long  past,  civilizations  have  become 
corrupt  and  effete,  waiting  barbaric  hordes  have  over- 
whelmed degenerate  peoples,  and  civilization  has  be- 
gun anew.  But  there  is  no  more  fresh,  unspoiled 
barbaric  blood  whose  infusion  can  vivify  a  decaying 
civilization.  If  civilization  necessarily  engenders  cor- 
ruption and  effeminacy,  then  is  the  race  doomed,  and  it 
is  time  to  pray  for  Huxley's  friendly  comet  to  execute 
the  sentence.  In  other  words,  society  in  its  evolution 
has  reached  a  stage  in  which  the  great  human  prob- 
lems that  vitally  concern  not  the  privileged  classes, 
nor  the  dominant  races,  nor  the  Great  Powers  alone, 
but  mankind  —  Our  World  —  must  be  faced.  They 

vii 


viii  INTRODUCTION 

can  no  longer  be  postponed  to  some  other  age,  nor  trans- 
ferred to  some  other  people.  There  is  no  other  people, 
and  I  had  almost  said  that  unless  these  pressing  world- 
problems  find  early  solution,  there  will  be  no  other 
age. 

There  is  being  developed  a  new  world-life  with 
vitally  important  implications  —  a  new  world-industry, 
a  new  world-peace,  and  a  new  world-ideal,  after  which 
men  are  now  groping.  This  new  world-life  and  a  state- 
ment of  the  new  world-problems  which  grow  out  of  it 
occupy  this  volume.  No  solution  of  these  problems  is 
here  attempted,  but  only  an  analysis  which  shows  their 
real  nature  and  then*  imperative  importance. 

In  the  second  volume  the  writer  will  undertake  to 
show  that  the  Christianity  of  Christ  not  only  recognizes 
the  new  world-ideal  after  which  men  are  now  feeling, 
but  defines,  illuminates,  and  glorifies  it;  that  Jesus,  who 
always  had  the  world-vision,  laid  down  the  world- 
principles  by  which  alone  the  great  world-problems 
can  be  solved  and  the  new  world-ideal  realized.  It  will 
also  be  shown  that  Institutional  Christianity  is  now  on 
trial,  and  that  only  as  it  grasps  the  world-significance 
of  the  teachings  of  Jesus  and  applies  his  principles  to 
world-salvation  can  it  hope  to  survive. 

The  third  volume  will  discuss  the  scientific  principles 
revealed  by  the  new  knowledge,  which  at  the  same  time 
lay  a  new  responsibility  on  society  and  justify  a  new 
hope  for  humanity.  These  principles  confirm  the 
social  teachings  of  Jesus  and  assist  in  their  application 
to  existing  social  conditions.  This  volume  will  then 
apply  the  teachings  of  Jesus  and  the  teachings  of 
science  to  the  solution  of  the  great  world-problems, 
and  show  that  whether  the  new  civilization  issues  in  a 
heaven  on  earth  or  a  hell  on  earth  depends  on  the 


INTRODUCTION  ix 

practical  application  of  these  teachings  to  human 
affairs. 

In  the  fourth  volume  it  will  be  shown  that  America 
is  the  great  laboratory  of  the  world,  where  these  prob- 
lems which  concern  all  peoples  are  farthest  advanced 
and  will  soonest  reach  a  crisis;  and  that  we  have  some 
special  facilities  for  solving  them. 

There  will  then  be  pointed  out  some  special  relations 
which  we  sustain  to  Europe,  South  America,  Africa, 
and  Asia,  together  with  certain  practical  measures 
demanded  by  the  world-crisis  on  which  we  are  entering. 


PART  I. 
THE  NEW  WORLD-LIFE 


The  New  World -Life 

CHAPTER  I 
A  NEW  WORLD-TENDENCY 

CAN  there  be  no  such  thing  as  a  permanent  civiliza- 
tion? Is  humanity,  in  its  successive  generations,  con- 
demned to  the  task  of  Sisyphus? 

Powers  have  arisen,  have  built  on  the  ruins  of  civili- 
zations which  they  have  overthrown,  have  waxed  great 
and  greater  until  there  was  no  more  opposition  to  over- 
come, and  then,  weakened  by  their  own  success,  have 
declined  and  perished. 

Exploration  reveals  the  cynical  fact  that  a  mound  in 
the  valley  of  the  Euphrates,  the  Tigris,  or  the  Nile  is 
the  tomb  of  perhaps  a  dozen  dead  cities,  which  have 
been  built  one  upon  another.  The  remains  of  ancient 
civilizations  are  like  geologic  strata  which  mark  the 
long  ages  in  which  different  forms  of  life  came  and  went. 
Even  in  this  "New"  World  we  find  the  remains  of  two 
prehistoric  civilizations  in  North  America,  one  earlier 
than  the  other,  both  of  which  were  succeeded  by 
savagery.  In  Peru  antiquarians  point  out  the  remains 
of  four  different  civilizations  superimposed  one  upon 
another  prior  to  the  Spanish  occupation. 

Is  this  historic  round  necessary?  Do  civilizations, 
like  men,  naturally  have  their  birth,  childhood,  youth, 
mature  life,  old  age,  and  death?  Such  seems  to  have 
been  the  record  of  history;  but  does  this  vicious 

3 


4  THE  NEW  WORLD-LIFE 

circle  belong  to  the  constitution  of  things?  Professor 
Patten  remarks:  "No  truth  confronts  us  more  baldly 
than  this,  that  periods  of  decay  and  reaction  have 
interrupted  those  of  life  and  construction.  The  fail- 
ure to  find  a  sound  basis  for  civilization  is  tragic 
enough  to  overcome  the  most  courageous  with  the 
scourging  fear  that  the  instability  of  social  structures 
is  the  result  of  some  fatal  defect  in  the  constitution  of 
the  earth  itself  I"1  Not  only  does  this  fear  rise  like  a 
spectre  from  the  study  of  the  dead  past,  but  it  is  sug- 
gested to  many  minds  by  the  present  outlook  upon  the 
world.  It  goes  without  showing  that  world-wide 
changes  are  now  in  process.  With  the  inauguration 
of  the  industrial  revolution  in  every  land;  with  the 
building  of  transcontinental  railways  and  interoceanic 
canals;  with  the  substitution  of  constitutional  govern- 
ment for  ancient  despotism;  with  Russia,  Turkey, 
China,  and  Persia  feeling  after  parliamentary  institu- 
tions; with  the  popular  education  and  freedom  of 
speech  which  must  needs  accompany  the  growth  of 
democracy;  with  the  rise  of  new  sciences  and  their 
revolutionary  results  in  the  material  world,  it  is  quite 
evident  that  existing  civilizations  are  in  a  condition  of 
flux.  Moreover,  with  the  development  of  the  scien- 
tific method  and  its  application  not  only  to  the  phe- 
nomena of  nature  but  to  history,  religion,  and  theology, 
authority  has  been  overturned,  the  anchorage  of  many 
has  been  loosened  and  they  have  been  set  adrift  amid 
the  conflicting  currents  of  modern  speculation. 

The  complexity  of  present-day  life  overwhelms  us. 
We  are  lost  in  details.  The  world  seems  to  live  only  a 
day  at  a  time.  The  newspaper  habit  distorts  or  de- 
stroys our  perspective;  it  fixes  attention  on  the  happen- 

1  "The  New  Basis  for  Civilization,"  p.  31. 


A  NEW  WORLD-TENDENCY  5 

ings  of  the  hour  and  passes  before  the  mind  a  rapidly 
shifting  panorama  —  a  sort  of  continuous  presentation 
of  perpetually  dissolving  views,  which  to  the  average 
mind  is  a  meaningless  jumble  of  events.  When  we 
stop  to  think  at  all,  we  wonder  whether  in  the 
government  of  the  world  there  is  a  fixed  purpose,  a 
comprehensive  plan,  and  orderly  progress  toward  its 
accomplishment. 

The  ancient  tradition  of  a  time  when  "the  morning 
stars  sang  together  "  indicates  an  early  apprehension  of 
the  harmony  of  the  physical  universe.  This  concep- 
tion which  was  once  a  poetic  fancy  is  now  recognized 
as  an  established  scientific  fact.  Newton's  vast  gener- 
alization, embracing  all  worlds  and  systems  of  worlds, 
transforms  their  meaningless  movements  into  the 
visible  music  of  the  spheres.  Neither  sun  nor  mote 
floating  in  its  beams  makes  a  jarring  note  hi  the  infinite 
harmony.  Great  and  small,  far  and  near,  are  alike 
comprehended  under  one  and  the  same  law. 

Furthermore,  the  fact  that  man  has  discovered  no 
celestial  body  which  contains  elements  other  than 
those  of  the  earth  is  more  than  a  hint  of  the  unity  of 
creation. 

Again,  we  have  reached  the  conception  that  truth  is 
a  unit,  that  from  the  "Flower  in  the  crannied  wall"  up 
to  its  Creator  the  whole  of  any  one  truth  is  all  truth. 
The  scientific  method,  the  correctness  of  which  is  suf- 
ficiently demonstrated  by  its  priceless  results,  is  based 
on  the  absolute  harmony  of  all  truth.  This  harmony  is 
not  always  obvious,  but  a  wide  angle  of  vision  so  often 
reveals  principles  which  are  apparently  conflicting  as 
only  the  opposite  poles  of  the  same  great  truth  that  we 
have  learned  to  ascribe  all  such  apparent  conflicts  to 
mental  myopia. 


6  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

Again,  the  principle  of  evolution,  equally  applicable 
to  physical,  mental,  moral,  and  spiritual  development, 
serves  to  unify  the  ages  through  which  "One  increasing 
purpose  runs,"  and  shows  that  the  universal  law  of 
cause  and  effect  is  the  unbroken  thread  on  which  the 
centuries  are  strung.  As  there  is  no  isolated  particle 
of  matter  and  no  unrelated  truth,  so  there  are  no  iso- 
lated and  unrelated  events.  Says  Henry  Drummond: 
"Science  for  centuries  devoted  itself  to  the  cataloguing 
of  facts  and  the  discovery  of  laws.  Each  worker  toiled 
in  his  own  little  place  —  the  geologist  in  his  quarry,  the 
botanist  in  his  garden,  the  biologist  in  his  laboratory, 
the  astronomer  in  his  observatory,  the  historian  in  his 
library,  the  archaeologist  in  his  museum.  Suddenly 
these  workers  looked  up;  they  spoke  to  one  another; 
they  had  each  discovered  a  law;  they  whispered  its 
name.  It  was  Evolution.  Henceforth  their  work  was 
one,  science  was  one,  the  world  was  one,  and  mind, 
which  discovered  the  oneness,  was  one."1 

This  oneness  of  the  evolutionary  process,  this  oneness 
of  truth,  this  identity  of  elements,  this  oneness  of  the  law 
of  cause  and  effect,  each  embracing  the  physical,  men- 
tal, and  moral  spheres,  show  that  these  several  spheres 
are  all  parts  of  one  comprehending  whole  because  all 
are  subject  to  the  same  great  laws. 

It  is  not  difficult  in  this  scientific  age  to  believe  hi 
the  oneness  of  nature  which  is  under  law,  but  to  many 
minds  history  seems  little  more  than  a  chaos  of  dis- 
cordant happenings,  without  purpose  or  plan.  It  is 
easy  to  recognize  a  harmony  in  the  physical  world 
which  apparently  does  not  exist  in  the  moral  world. 
In  the  latter  human  wills,  which  are  a  law  unto  them- 
selves^ enter  in  to  complicate  the  problem.  Different 
lThe  Ascent  of  Man,"  pp.  8,  9. 


A  NEW  WORLD  -  TENDENCY  7 

individuals,  classes,  and  nations  have  different  interests 
and  conflicting  purposes;  hence  the  great  world  discord. 
The  divine  problem  in  the  moral  universe  is  to  make  all 
moral  beings  glad  to  obey  while  leaving  all  free  to  dis- 
obey. It  is  evident  that  until  this  problem  is  solved, 
the  diverse  and  perverse  operation  of  human  wills 
must  obscure,  more  or  less,  the  benevolent  plan  and 
purpose  of  the  Divine  Government. 

If  there  is  such  a  purpose  discernible  amid  the  con- 
fusion of  the  world,  it  is  of  the  utmost  importance  to 
discover  it,  and  to  acquaint  ourselves  as  far  as  possible 
with  the  plan  by  which  that  purpose  is  being  realized, 
in  order  that  we  may  be  intelligent  and  efficient  co- 
labourers  with  God  to  the  accomplishment  of  that  end. 

Professor  Drummond  wrote  seventeen  years  ago: 
"To  discover  the  rationale  of  social  progress  is  the 
ambition  of  this  age."1  The  rapid  movement  of 
events  and  the  increasing  light  of  science  encourage  me 
to  believe  that  this  ambition  is  now  within  measurable 
distance  of  being  realized. 

It  is  becoming  more  and  more  evident  that  man  as 
well  as  nature  is  under  law.  While  it  may  be  impossible 
to  tell  what  an  individual  will  do  under  given  condi- 
tions, it  may  be  possible  to  anticipate  with  great  con- 
fidence what  a  class  or  a  tribe  or  a  nation  will  do  under 
the  same  conditions.  Nothing  is  more  uncertain  than 
the  life  of  an  individual,  but  few  things  in  the  future 
are  more  sure  than  the  number  of  men  out  of  a  mil- 
lion who  will  die  in  a  given  time.  We  are  learning 
much  of  the  laws  of  life,  of  the  importance  of  environ- 
ment, of  the  reflex  influence  of  mind  and  body  on  each 
other,  and  of  a  thousand  other  things  which  bear  on 
human  progress  and  the  destiny  of  the  race.  By  mak- 
1<4The  Ascent  of  Man,"  p.  3. 


8  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

ing  a  study  sufficiently  broad,  therefore,  we  may  hope 
to  trace  tendencies  which  are  indicative  of  a  very 
definite  goal  toward  which  the  world  is  moving. 

A   NEW   WORLD-TENDENCY 

If  the  Mississippi  Valley  were  tilted  only  a  few  hun- 
dred feet,  the  great  river  would  flow  north  and  empty 
into  the  Hudson  Bay  instead  of  the  Gulf.  Such  a 
reversal  of  its  current  would  profoundly  affect  the 
United  States.  Much  more  profound  and  much  far- 
ther-reaching will  be  the  results  of  the  reversal  of  a 
stream  of  tendency  which  took  place  during  the  past 
century. 

This  stream  flowed  in  one  direction  for  unnumbered 
thousands  of  years.  Its  origin  dates  back  to  the  be- 
ginning of  the  lowest  form  of  life  on  this  planet.  From 
this  single  living  cell,  so  science  tells  us,  came  the  end- 
less variations  of  vegetable  and  animal  life,  ever  appear- 
ing in  new  forms,  as  life,  in  its  progress  over  the  earth, 
adapted  itself  to  an  ever-changing  environment.  The 
constantly  widening  current  of  this  stream  of  tendency 
has  borne  with  it  multiplying  customs,  languages,  laws, 
religions,  philosophies,  industries,  institutions,  forms  of 
government,  nations,  races,  and  civilizations. 

The  tendency  of  the  long  past  has  been  toward 
diversity,  that  of  the  longer  future  will  be  toward 
oneness. 

The  change  hi  this  stream  of  tendency  is  not  a  tem- 
porary deviation  from  its  age-long  course  —  a  mere 
bend  in  the  river.  It  is  an  actual  reversal  of  the  current, 
which  beyond  a  perad venture  will  prove  permanent. 
This  change,  absolutely  unique  in  the  history  of  the 
world,  and  unspeakably  more  important  than  any  pos- 


A  NEW  WORLD  -TENDENCY  9 

sible  political,  social,  or  physical  convulsion,  lias  been 
so  gradual  and  so  silent  that  it  has  scarcely  been  noticed. 

Let  us  hi  the  barest  possible  outline  indicate  this 
momentous  change. 

It  is  a  fundamental  law  of  life  that  it  must  be  adapted 
to  its  environment.  If  environment  materially  changes, 
life  must  adapt  itself,  accordingly  or  perish. 

Environment,  as  we  shall  see  in  a  later  chapter 
devoted  to  that  subject,  embraces  all  physical  condi- 
tions, such  as  soil,  temperature,  humidity,  the  con- 
formation of  the  earth's  surface,  food,  clothing,  home, 
and  the  like.  It  also  includes  institutions,  laws,  cus- 
toms, and  all  influences,  social,  intellectual,  moral,  and 
spiritual. 

Wherever  primitive  man  began,  his  multiplying 
descendants  were  at  length  forced  to  move  outward  by 
the  pressure  of  population  on  the  means  of  subsistence, 
different  groups  came  in  contact  with  different  environ- 
ments which  speedily  began  to  work  in  them  variation 
from  the  parent  stock.  Some  for  better  protection 
took  possession  of  mountain  fastnesses  and  wooded 
regions,  and  subsisting  by  the  chase,  and  by  gathering 
wild  fruits  and  berries,  remained  savage.  Some  were 
crowded  out  to  dry  upland  plains,  and  living  by  means 
of  domesticated  animals  became  nomadic  like  the 
Arabs.  Some  took  possession  of  well-watered  valleys 
and  rose  by  various  stages  from  savagery  to  an  agri- 
cultural civilization,  becoming  builders  of  villages  and 
cities  like  the  Egyptians  and  Assyrians;  while  others 
halted  at  the  seacoast,  and  naturally  became  fishers, 
sailors,  and  merchants,  developing  in  the  course  of 
ages  a  commercial  civilization  like  the  Phoenicians  and 
Greeks.  Thus  radically  different  environments  pro- 
duced radically  different  civilizations. 


10  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

The  more  widely  peoples  were  scattered,  the  greater 
became  climatic  differences,  which  emphasized  the 
divergence  of  their  habits  and  characteristics.  Those 
who  occupied  warm  climates  needed  little  clothing  and 
but  little  shelter  from  the  elements,  and  a  generous  soil 
provided  food  hi  response  to  little  effort.  In  the 
course  of  generations  both  physical  and  mental  habits 
were  fixed  which  harmonized  with  these  easy  conditions 
of  life. 

More  northern  peoples  were  forced  by  the  rigours  of 
their  climates  to  provide  adequate  shelter,  warm  cloth- 
ing, and  a  winter's  supply  of  food.  They  were  thus 
stimulated  to  form  active  habits  of  body  and  mind. 

Living  languages,  like  all  living  things,  grow.  Peoples 
separated  by  mountain  ranges,  deserts,  and  seas  found 
themselves,  in  the  course  of  generations,  unable  to 
understand  each  other,  though  their  ancestors  had 
spoken  the  same  tongue.  Thus  isolation  developed 
differences  which  again  increased  isolation. 

Nature,  ever  seeking  to  conform  life  to  its  environ- 
ment, gradually  adapted  physical  types  to  differences 
of  climate,  food,  habit,  and  condition,  until  in  the  course 
of  generations  racial  characteristics  were  differentiated 
and  fixed. 

These  racial  characteristics  of  course  include  mental 
and  moral  differences  as  well  as  physical.  In  tropical 
and  subtropical  Asia  nature  is  overwhelming;  deserts 
are  so  vast,  mountains  are  so  high,  heat  is  so  intense, 
drouths,  famines,  and  earthquakes  are  so  terrible,  that 
men  are  cowed  and  almost  paralyzed.  They  are  awed 
by  forces  in  the  presence  of  which  they  are  helpless, 
and  become  fatalists.  They  live  in  the  grasp  of  irresist- 
ible power,  the  consciousness  of  which  tends  to  develop 
the  religious  frame  of  mind.  And  it  is  a  significant 


A  NEW  WORLD  -TENDENCY  11 

fact  that  every  great  religion  in  the  world  to-day 
originated  among  Asiatic  peoples.  As  Buckle  has 
pointed  out,  such  physical  conditions  as  exist  in  India 
are  far  better  calculated  to  cultivate  the  imagination 
than  the  understanding,  and  to  stimulate  the  spirit  of 
reverence  than  that  of  inquiry. 

In  Europe,  on  the  other  hand,  nature  is  on  a  smaller 
scale.  She  does  not  terrorize.  Men  were,  therefore, 
emboldened  to  undertake  her  conquest;  hence  the 
development  of  the  sciences,  and  a  mighty  impulse  to 
Western  progress. 

Until  the  nineteenth  century  there  was  but  little 
contact  between  different  peoples.  They  were  sepa- 
rated, not  only  by  distances  hard  to  overcome,  but  by 
differences  of  speech,  of  faith,  of  mental  habit  and  mode 
of  life,  of  custom  and  costume,  of  government  and  law; 
and  isolation  tended  steadily  to  emphasize  the  diver- 
gence which  already  existed.  Thus  increasing  differ- 
ences of  environment  perpetuated  and  intensified  the 
differences  of  civilization  which  they  had  created. 

In  other  words,  until  the  nineteenth  century  the 
stream  of  tendency  down  all  the  ages  was  toward 
diversity.  Then  came  the  profound  change,  the  results 
of  which  are,  in  their  magnitude  and  importance, 
beyond  all  calculation. 

Steam  annihilated  nine  tenths  of  distance,  and 
electricity  has  cancelled  the  remainder.  Isolation  is, 
therefore,  becoming  impossible,  for  the  world  is  now  a 
neighbourhood.  This  means  that  differences  of  en- 
vironment will,  from  this  time  on,  become  constantly 
less. 

The  swift  ships  of  commerce  are  mighty  shuttles 
which  are  weaving  the  nations  together  into  one  great 
web  of  life.  True,  there  has  been  commerce  since  the 


12  THE  NEW  WORLD -LIFE 

early  ages;  but  caravans  could  afford  to  carry  only 
precious  goods,  like  fine  fabrics,  spices,  and  gems. 
These  luxuries  did  not  reach  the  multitude,  and  could 
not  materially  change  environment.  But  modern 
commerce  scatters  over  all  the  world  the  products  of 
every  climate,  in  ever-increasing  quantities.  For- 
merly, all  peoples  were  sustained  by  local  products, 
which  differed  as  widely  as  the  climates  which  produced 
them. 

Now  Europeans  import  a  large  proportion  of  their 
food,  and  differences  of  diet  are  being  gradually  elim- 
inated. We  are  sending  many  millions  of  tons  of 
cereals  to  Europe  and  Asia  every  year,  while  cold 
storage  enables  the  American  and  the  Australian  to 
supply  the  English  market  with  fresh  meats. 

In  like  manner,  peoples  were  once  confined  to  the 
clothing  which  they  were  able  to  produce.  Now  wools, 
cottons,  silks,  and  all  textile  goods  are  exchanged  by 
the  ends  of  the  earth 

Mr.  Emerson  calls  coal  "a  portable  climate,"  which 
is  certainly  true  of  a  refrigerator  car.  To-day  the  cli- 
mate of  one  country  may  be  shipped  to  another.  With 
ice,  coal,  furnaces,  and  the  various  products  of  our 
manufactures,  we  find  that  homes  are  being  equipped 
throughout  the  world  in  much  the  same  way.  There  is 
probably  no  civilized  land  on  the  globe  now  where  the 
sewing  machine  and  the  kerosene  lamp  are  not  found, 
each  working  important  changes,  and  helping  to  bring 
very  different  peoples  under  very  similar  conditions. 

Houses  in  different  countries  are  becoming  more  and 
more  alike.  There  are  parts  of  Cairo  and  of  Constan- 
tinople where  the  American  might  easily  imagine  he 
was  in  Chicago  or  San  Francisco. 

Thus  there  is  a  growing  tendency  to  modify  the 


A  NEW  WORLD -TENDENCY  13 

physical  differences  of  environment.  Nor  is  this  ten- 
dency confined  to  the  elimination  of  physical  differences. 
The  press  is  producing  a  climate  of  opinion  which  is 
becoming  ever  wider  and  is  destined  to  be  universal. 
Millions  now  read  the  same  printed  page  and  think  the 
same  thoughts.  Since  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth 
century  several  hundred  million  Bibles,  Testaments, 
and  portions  of  the  Scripture  have  been  issued  in 
about  490  different  translations  —  enough  to  furnish 
every  family  of  the  human  race  with  a  copy.  There 
are  many  great  periodicals  in  many  different  countries 
which  are  international  in  their  circulation  and  in- 
fluence. The  Outlook,  for  instance,  sends  thousands 
of  copies  every  week  to  more  than  ninety  different 
countries  outside  of  the  United  States.  There  is  an 
increasing  body  of  literature  which  is  read  by  all  cul- 
tivated peoples,  through  which  increasing  numbers  are 
coming  to  live  in  the  same  intellectual  world.  No  one 
can  estimate  to  what  extent  Shakespeare  has  helped 
to  harmonize  human  thinking.  Science,  which  knows 
no  frontier,  is  every  day  removing  something  from  the 
domain  of  opinion,  and  therefore  of  strife,  to  that  of 
actual  knowledge;  and  every  such  addition  to  recognized 
truth  enlarges  the  common  ground  where  all  men  may 
stand.  Men  long  since  ceased  quarrelling  over  the 
Copernican  theory. 

Isolation  is  the  mother  of  ignorance,  and  ignorance  is 
the  prolific  mother  of  misunderstandings  and  preju- 
dices, racial,  national,  political,  and  religious.  Human 
nature  is  fundamentally  the  same  among  all  peoples. 
A  cultivated  American  lady  who  had  recently  come  into 
contact  with  Italian  labourers  and  other  immigrants 
remarked,  "The  strangest  thing  to  me  is  that  people 
who  are  so  different  are  so  much  alike."  If  men  get 


14  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

near  enough  really  to  discover  one  another,  they  find 
that  they  have  more  in  common  than  in  difference. 
Accordingly  the  closer  contact  of  modern  life,  its  wider 
relations,  its  many-sided  education,  its  facilities  for 
travel  are  all  dispelling  misunderstandings  and  up- 
rooting prejudices. 

Nowhere  have  prejudices  been  so  bitter  as  hi  the 
religious  world.  Men  of  different  creeds  have  religi- 
ously "hated  one  another  for  the  love  of  God."  And 
nowhere  have  differences  been  more  multiplied  or 
magnified.  One  of  the  fundamental  principles  of  the 
Protestant  Reformation  was  the  right  of  private  judg- 
ment, and  this  principle  has  divided  and  subdivided 
until  the  United  States  Census  recognizes  over  one 
hundred  and  fifty  different  denominations,  among 
whom  there  are  fourteen  different  brands  of  Baptists, 
and  seventeen  different  styles  of  Methodists.  Now, 
however,  the  various  denominations  are  drawing  nearer 
to  each  other;  those  of  the  same  great  family  are  holding 
great  international  gatherings.  In  a  few  instances 
closely  related  bodies  have  become  organically  one 
and  many  are  hoping,  praying,  and  working  for  a  re- 
united Christendom.  The  Federal  Council  of  the 
Churches  of  Christ  in  America  includes  thirty-two 
Protestant  denominations  and  represents  a  church 
membership  of  approximately  20,000,000.  Not  only 
do  the  representatives  of  different  Christian  creeds  dare 
to  do  justice  to  each  other,  but  one  of  the  closing  and 
crowning  wonders  of  the  nineteenth  century  was  the 
friendly  gathering  of  religionists  of  every  name  hi  what 
was  indeed  a  "Parliament  of  man"  for  the  sympathetic 
study  of  all  the  great  faiths  of  the  world. 

Christian  missionaries  in  ever-increasing  numbers  are 
zealously  toiling  to  disciple  the  nations,  and  to  bring 


A  NEW  WORLD  -  TENDENCY  15 

all  men  ultimately  to  the  acceptance  of  the  same  fun- 
damental religious  truths. 

In  the  political  world  an  early  response  to  this  new 
tendency  was  the  unification  of  Germany  and  that  of 
Italy.  Witness  more  recently  the  provinces  of  Canada, 
the  colonies  of  Australia,  and  those  of  South  Africa 
uniting  into  nations;  occupying  hi  the  case  of  Canada 
and  Australia  lands  well  nigh  or  quite  as  ample  as  our 
own. 

Capital,  consolidating  hi  larger  masses,  and  labour 
moving  toward  more  and  more  comprehensive  organi- 
zation, exemplify  this  tendency  in  the  world  of  industry. 

The  rapid  extension  of  organized  industry  is  the  most 
potent  of  all  the  forces  which  are  co-operating  to  pro- 
duce this  world-wide  movement,  because  it  is  effecting 
the  profoundest  changes  hi  environment.  The  way  in 
which  peoples  have  gained  then*  livelihood  has  been 
the  chief  cause  hi  determining  the  type  of  their  civili- 
zation; and  the  organization  of  industry  introduces  a 
radically  new  type  of  civilization  because  it  creates 
radically  new  conditions  of  life.  This  organization  of 
industry,  which  is  most  perfectly  exemplified  in  Europe 
and  the  United  States,  is  beginning  to  work  f  ar-reaching 
changes  hi  Asia,  and  is  on  its  way  around  the  world. 

The  industrial  revolution  inevitably  produces  a 
social  revolution,  and  creates  a  social  organization 
which  is  co-extensive  with  the  industrial  organization. 
It  will  be  shown  in  the  following  chapter  that  we  have 
already  entered  on  the  organization  of  a  world- industry, 
which  means  the  ultimate  organization  of  a  world- 
society,  a  profound  modification  of  the  environment  of 
all  peoples,  and  the  harmonizing  influences  of  a  world- 
life. 

The  world-life  is  both  manifested  and  promoted  by 


16  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

the  Postal  Union  of  the  world,  by  oceanic  cables  con- 
necting continents,  and  by  inter-continental  systems 
of  railway;  also  by  the  existence  and  growth  of  inter- 
national law.  The  establishment  of  the  Court  of 
Arbitration  at  The  Hague,  which  was  one  of  the  great 
events  of  modern  times,  will  by  its  decisions  contribute 
to  the  existing  body  of  international  law,  and  will  also 
serve  to  develop  and  educate  an  international  or  world 
conscience.1 

Ethical  standards  were  once  quite  local  and  extremely 
diverse;  then  they  became  tribal,  then  national,  and 
now  world  standards  are  being  established. 

Thus  conditions,  which  for  thousands  of  years 
tended  to  diversity,  have  now  been  superseded  by  con- 
ditions which  tend  to  oneness. 

It  should  be  observed  further  that  the  new  move- 
ment is  much  more  rapid  than  the  old  one.  Many  of 
the  differences  which  separate  men  required  centuries 
for  their  perceptible  development.  But  now  every 
year  marks  long  strides  in  the  tendency  to  subordinate 
differences,  to  emphasize  resemblances,  to  sink  the 
small  in  the  great,  and  to  merge  the  many  in  the 
one. 

If  a  traveller  should  enter  Chesapeake  Bay  and 
explore  the  Susquehanna  River,  threading  his  way 
among  its  many  islands,  he  would  presently  find  it 
branching  and  branching  again.  Ascending  any  one 
of  these  smaller  streams,  he  would  discover  that  it 
divides  and  subdivides  until,  high  up  in  the  Alle- 
ghanies,  he  would  reach  the  numberless  springs  which 
feed  all  these  streams. 

Crossing  the  divide,  he  would  soon  come  upon  other 

'For  a  further  development  of  this  subject  see  the  author's  "Ex- 
pansion," chap.  VIII. 


A  NEW  WORLD  -  TENDENCY  17 

springs  whose  rivulets  soon  join  to  form  a  brook.  These 
brooks  are  all  hastening  to  find  a  creek  which  surely 
loses  itself  in  a  river.  And  thus  throughout  the 
Mississippi  Valley,  with  its  million  square  miles,  he 
would  find  numberless  streams,  all  unconsciously  but 
surely  seeking  each  other,  until  at  length  they  unite  in 
the  mighty  artery  which  carries  then*  flood  to  the  gulf 
and  the  sea. 

The  race  has  now  crossed  the  great  divide  of  human 
history,  and  numberless  streams  of  tendency  are  all 
unconsciously  moving  toward  the  oneness  of  the  great 
future. 

But  we  must  not  imagine  that  the  future  is  to  undo 
the  work  of  the  past.  Differences  have  been  developed 
for  a  purpose.  An  organism  is  impossible  without  dif- 
ferentiation, and  the  greater  the  differences  between  its 
several  organs,  the  higher  is  the  form  of  life. 

If  men  had  not  differed  from  each  other,  civilization 
could  have  made  little  or  no  progress. 

"God  fulfills  himself  in  many  ways, 
Lest  one  good  custom  should  corrupt  the  world." 

Harmony  is  nobler  than  unison.  The  work  of  the 
past  has  been  to  fashion  the  many  different  instru- 
ments for  a  world  orchestra,  and  all  history  has  been 
filled  with  their  discords  while  in  the  making.  But 
now  the  work  of  harmonizing  is  well  begun,  and  the 
time  will  surely  come  when  they  will  be  attuned  to 
heaven's  keynote. 

The  angels'  song  of  nineteen  centuries  ago  has  waited 
long  for  earth's  antiphonal,  but  each  New  Year  brings 
nearer  the  great  consummation  when  all  nations,  kin- 
dreds, tongues,  and  peoples  shall  join  to  raise  the  Gloria 
in  excelsis  —  "Peace  on  earth,  good  will  to  men." 


18  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

"For  lo,  the  days  are  hastening  on. 

By  prophet  bards  foretold, 
When  with  the  ever-circling  years 

Comes  round  the  age  of  gold; 
When  peace  shall  over  all  the  earth 

Its  ancient  splendours  fling, 
And  the  whole  world  give  back  the  song 

Which  now  the  angels  sing." 


CHAPTER  II 
A  NEW  WORLD-INDUSTRY 

FOUR  thousand  years  ago  and  more,  caravans  of 
camels  made  their  way  across  the  sands  of  Arabia  be- 
tween Nineveh  and  Babylon  on  the  east  and  the  cities 
of  the  Nile  Valley  on  the  west.  Sea-borne  commerce 
was  carried  in  small  vessels  poorly  built  and  propelled 
with  oars.  Even  a  thousand  years  later,  when  men 
had  begun  to  supplement  oars  with  sails,  the  little  ships 
crept  from  headland  to  headland  and  sailed  only  by 
day.  Sometimes  on  long  voyages  the  crews  were  com- 
pelled to  replenish  their  exhausted  supplies  by  halting 
on  some  shore  long  enough  to  sow  and  reap  a  crop; 
while  caravans  which  traveled  between  the  Mediter- 
ranean and  China  occupied  more  than  a  year  hi  the 
round  trip.  Futhermore,  to  the  perils  of  the  desert 
and  the  sea  were  added  those  of  the  robber  and  the 
pirate. 

Commerce  under  conditions  so  difficult  and  danger- 
ous was  of  course  correspondingly  costly,  and  only 
expensive  luxuries  would  bear  transportation.  Such 
traffic,  apart  from  serving  to  increase  the  meagre  knowl- 
edge of  geography  and  of  distant  peoples,  concerned  only 
the  merchants  engaged  in  it  and  their  rich  patrons. 

With  the  discovery  of  the  mariner's  compass  and  the 
substitution  of  sails  for  oars  commerce  entered  on 
its  second  great  stage.  The  utilization  of  wind  made 
larger  ships  practicable,  and  it  became  possible  to  trans- 

19 


20  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

port  with  profit  much  less  costly  goods.  Traffic  was 
thus  extended  to  a  thousand  conveniences  and  com- 
forts which  touched  the  lives  of  the  common  people. 

But  over-sea  commerce  is  of  course  limited  by  facil- 
ities for  land  transportation,  which  feeds  it.  Its  in- 
fluence, therefore,  could  penetrate  a  great  area,  and 
profoundly  affect  national  life  only  after  the  advent  of 
the  railway. 

Commerce,  therefore,  entered  on  its  third  great 
stage  in  the  nineteenth  century  when  it  was  so  cheap- 
ened and  extended  by  steam  that  nations  began  to 
depend  on  each  other  in  part  for  the  necessaries  of  life. 

It  would  require  a  fleet  of  300  vessels  such  as  the 
Greeks  and  Phoenicians  propelled  with  oars  to  carry 
the  cargo  of  a  single  modern  steamer,  and  it  would 
take  from  375,000  to  500,000  camels  to  transport  the 
wheat  which  during  the  busy  season  passes  over  any 
one  of  our  great  east  and  west  railways  in  a  single  day. 
This  profound  change  in  the  means  of  transportation 
and  in  the  volume  of  traffic  is  not  greater  than  the 
change  which  is  being  wrought  by  it  in  the  conditions 
of  national  existence  and  in  the  creation  of  a  new  world- 
life. 

Animal  life  rises  in  the  scale  of  being  as  the  various 
organs  and  members  of  the  individual  are  differentiated 
and  integrated;  and  differentiation  and  integration  are 
no  less  essential  to  the  evolution  and  elevation  of  the 
social  organism. 

If  every  man  had  been  born  like  every  other,  if  all 
had  been  endowed  with  identical  tastes  and  talents, 
with  the  same  powers  and  adaptations,  civilization  could 
have  made  little  or  no  progress,  and  society  could  never 
have  had  a  highly  organized  Me.  The  fact  that  men 
have  different  gifts,  and  gifts  that  supplement  each 


A  NEW  WORLD  -  INDUSTRY  21 

other,  is  an  unmistakable  indication  that  they  were 
intended  to  render  different  and  supplemental  services 
to  each  other;  and  when  the  first  exchange  of  such  ser- 
vices was  made,  the  first  step  toward  civilization  was 
taken. 

In  like  manner,  if  every  country  had  been  a  repetition 
of  every  other,  if  all  had  possessed  the  same  climate  and 
identical  natural  resources,  there  would  have  been 
little  or  no  inter-communication,  and  each  nation  would 
have  lived  an  independent  and  isolated  life.  Moreover, 
that  life  would  have  been  of  a  very  low  order,  for  isola- 
tion is  the  mother  of  barbarism.  But  the  wide  varia- 
tions of  climate  and  the  vast  differences  of  natural 
resources  and  of  all  the  conditions  of  life  naturally  and 
inevitably  resulted  in  a  variety  of  national  character- 
istics, habits,  adaptations,  industries  and  products, 
which  made  possible  the  development  of  a  world-com- 
merce and  the  organization  of  a  world-industry. 

It  is  modern  transportation,  with  its  rapidly  increas- 
ing facilities,  which  is  transforming  this  great  possi- 
bility into  a  splendid  actuality,  because  every  reduction 
in  the  cost  of  transportation  widens  the  area  of  compe- 
tition, and  competition,  as  we  shall  see,  tends  to  local- 
ize industries  where  natural  resources  confer  natural 
advantages.  The  working  of  this  principle  finds  an 
excellent  example  in  the  economic  history  of  the  United 
States,  because,  stretching  across  a  continent  and  ex- 
tending from  the  Arctic  regions  to  subtropical  latitudes, 
it  possesses  a  great  variety  of  climates  and  resources, 
and,  further,  because  communication  throughout  this 
vast  region  has  been  rendered  easy  by  means  of  an 
unequalled  railway  mileage. 

Early  in  the  economic  history  of  the  American  people 
roads  were  few  and  bad,  and  as  yet  canals  and  railways 


22  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

had  not  been  thought  of.  Population  was  sparse,  and 
economically  the  scattered  villages  were  practically 
independent  of  each  other.  Every  considerable  hamlet 
had  its  village  blacksmith  and  its  village  trader.  An 
occasional  water-power  made  possible  a  grist-mill 
and  sawmill,  between  which  and  then*  circle  of  patrons 
there  was  absolute  interdependence.  Communication 
was  so  difficult  as  to  forbid  any  considerable  compe- 
tition between  different  villages.  McMaster  remarks:1 
"Taking  the  country  through,  it  may  be  said  that  to 
transport  goods,  wares,  or  merchandise  cost  ten  dollars 
per  ton  per  hundred  miles.  Articles  that  could  not 
stand  these  rates  were  shut  from  market,  and  among 
them  were  grain  and  flour,  which  could  not  bear  trans- 
portation more  than  150  miles." 

In  this  simple  age  of  homespun  each  farmer's  family 
produced  its  own  food,  and  for  the  most  part  its  own 
clothing.  The  traffic  of  the  villages  with  the  distant 
city  was  confined  to  the  exchange  of  farm  products 
for  an  occasional  luxury,  or  for  the  few  articles  of 
home  use,  like  crockery,  glass,  and  hardware,  which  the 
farmer  and  his  good  wife  could  not  themselves  produce. 
Each  miller,  smith,  and  trader  was  a  little  monopolist. 
But  as  roads  improved,  the  influence  of  competition 
began  to  be  felt;  and  the  advent  of  the  railway  was  the 
beginning  of  a  new  economic  era. 

Between  different  communities  connected  by  rail, 
prices  could  not  vary  more  than  the  cost  of  transporta- 
tion. Facilities  of  transportation,  therefore,  deter- 
mined the  area  of  competition;  and  within  this  area  the 
miller,  or  trader,  or  manufacturer,  who  commanded 
greater  natural  advantages  or  larger  capital,  or  was 
endowed  with  better  business  abilities,  or  was  the 

l"  A  History  of  the  People  of  the  United  States,"  Vol.  Ill,  p.  464. 


A  NEW  WORLD  -  INDUSTRY  23 

master  of  more  effective  methods,  would  ultimately 
drive  his  competitors  out  of  business,  and  possess  him- 
self of  his  late  rivals'  trade.  Thus  within  a  given  region, 
the  area  of  which  was  determined  by  facilities  of  trans- 
portation, competition  tended  powerfully  to  concen- 
trate and  localize  industries. 

With  the  extension  of  railways  throughout  the  United 
States  and  their  organization  into  great  systems,  the 
cost  of  transportation  was  marvellously  reduced,  and 
the  area  of  competition  correspondingly  widened. 
While  it  once  cost  ten  dollars  to  move  a  ton  of  freight 
a  hundred  miles,  according  to  Edward  Atkinson  a 
skilled  mechanic  can  now  for  one  day's  wages  move  his 
year's  supply  of  bread  and  meat  2,000  miles.  Under 
such  conditions  competition  gradually  drove  capital 
out  of  unprofitable  forms  of  industry  into  profitable, 
or  transferred  it  from  less  competent  management  to 
more  competent;  so  that  the  tendency  to  concentrate 
and  localize  industries  was  illustrated  on  an  ever-en- 
larging scale  until,  by  reason  of  natural  resources  or  of 
certain  advantages  of  climate,  different  national  in- 
dustries became  characteristic  of  different  sections  of 
the  continent. 

Thus  New  England  can  no  longer  produce  her  own 
food.  This  inability  is  not  agricultural  but  economic. 
She  cannot  afford  to  grow  wheat,  because  the  neces- 
sary amount  of  capital  and  labour,  if  put  into  manu- 
factures, the  product  of  which  is  exchanged  for  the 
wheat  of  Minnesota  or  of  the  Dakotas,  gives  to  her  a 
larger  return.  In  like  manner  she  draws  her  meat 
from  the  Prairie  States,  her  subtropical  fruits  from 
Florida  and  Southern  California,  her  cotton  from  the 
Gulf  States,  her  wool,  apart  from  foreign  importations, 
from  the  Rocky  Mountain  States,  her  hard  woods 


24  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

from  the  Middle  States,  her  coal  and  iron  from  Penn- 
sylvania, and  her  precious  metals  from  the  Rocky 
Mountains. 

Thus  industry,  by  being  differentiated  and  localized 
hi  different  sections  of  the  country,  has  become  organ- 
ized on  a  national  scale.  It  is  making  the  interest  of 
one  section  the  concern  of  all,  so  that  a  calamity  falling 
on  one  industry  or  on  one  state  is  felt  by  all  the  others. 
The  various  sections  of  the  United  States  have  now 
become  necessary  to  one  another,  and  live  a  common 
economic  life  as  they  live  a  common  political  life. 

The  conditions  necessary  to  produce  this  outcome 
were,  first,  diversity  of  climate  together  with  varying 
natural  resources;  second,  improving  facilities  of  trans- 
portation; and,  third,  free  competition.  The  effect 
of  such  a  conjunction  of  conditions  depends  in  no  wise 
on  distances  or  natural  boundaries,  whether  the  inter- 
course is  between  different  countries  or  between  sec- 
tions of  the  same  country. 

1.  A  glance  shows  that  there  is  the  same  physical 
basis  for  the  economic  unity  of  the  world  as  for  that  of 
the  United  States.  There  is  of  course  a  wider  variation 
of  temperature  between  the  frigid  and  torrid  regions  of 
the  earth  than  between  the  Gulf  and  the  Great  Lakes. 
There  is  a  vastly  greater  range  of  humidity  between  the 
dry  uplands  of  Peru  and  the  flood-scoured  Khasi  Hills 
of  India  than  between  any  two  sections  of  the  United 
States.  It  is  evident,  therefore,  that  the  various  coun- 
tries of  the  world,  taken  together,  have  a  greater  variety 
of  climates  and  of  corresponding  fruits,  cereals,  forests, 
flocks,  and  herds  than  is  possible  to  our  own.  For  in- 
stance, among  the  fauna  which  we  do  not  have  there  are 
the  camels  of  hot,  dry  countries,  the  elephants  of  Asia 
and  Africa,  the  chamois  of  Switzerland,  and  the  llamas, 


A  NEW  WORLD  -  INDUSTRY  25 

alpacas,  and  vicunas  of  Peru.  And  rich  as  we  are  in 
minerals,  there  are  kinds  which  we  do  not  possess  in 
commercial  quantities. 

2.  It  is  also  evident  that  the  facilities  of  a  world- 
commerce    are     rapidly    increasing.       In    1840    the 
total  foreign  commerce  of  the  world  was  less  than 
$3,000,000,000;  now  that  of  the  United  States  alone 
reaches  $4,000,000,000  and  that  of  Germany  exceeds 
$3,000,000,000,  while  that  of  Great  Britain  is  now 
greater  than  was  the  combined  commerce  of  all  nations 
in  1850. 

As  railway  transportation  hi  the  United  States  has 
been  cheap  enough  to  result,  under  competition,  in  the 
localizing  and  organizing  of  our  great  industries  on  a 
national  scale,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  sea  trans- 
portation has  become  cheap  enough  to  stimulate  a  like 
tendency  hi  the  industries  of  the  world  because  water 
rates  are  only  a  fraction  of  rates  by  rail. 

Furthermore,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  world's 
commerce  is  to  continue  increasing  under  the  stimulus 
of  the  industrial  revolution,  the  rapid  increase  of  wealth, 
and  the  progress  of  invention. 

3.  The  third  condition  necessary  to  work  out  the 
gradual    organization    of    a    world-industry    is     free 
competition,  which  will   not  be   lacking   among   the 
nations. 

There  are  many  who  lament  the  economic  order  of 
the  past  and  vainly  seek  to  restore  it  because  they 
utterly  fail  to  appreciate  the  influence  of  competition 
under  the  powerful  stimulus  of  improving  facilities  of 
transportation.  No  one  more  ably  represents  this  class 
than  Prince  Kropotkin.  In  his  interesting  work, 
"Fields,  Factories  and  Workshops"  (p.  5),  he  main- 
tains that  "  the  ideal  of  society  —  that  is,  the  state 


26  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

toward  which  society  is  already  marching  —  is  a  society 
of  integrated  labour  .  .  .  where  each  aggrega- 
tion of  individuals,  large  enough  to  dispose  of  a  cer- 
tain variety  of  resources  —  it  may  be  a  nation,  or 
rather  a  region  —  produces  and  itself  consumes 
most  of  its  own  agricultural  and  manufactured 
products." 

I  regard  such  a  society  as  wholly  impossible  since 
transportation  has  entered  upon  its  third  stage  of 
development;  and  if  such  a  society  could  be  realized, 
it  would  be  a  long  step  back  toward  barbarism,  be- 
cause by  its  independence  it  would  isolate  itself. 

Great  Britain  was  the  first  nation  to  occupy  the  in- 
dustrial field.  For  a  large  part  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury she  held  undisputed  possession.  At  length  not 
only  the  United  States,  but  also  France,  Germany, 
Austria-Hungary,  Italy,  and  Russia  undertook  to  manu- 
facture for  themselves. 

Prince  Kropotkin  interprets  this  as  "the  decentraliza- 
tion of  industries,"  and  the  first  step  toward  the  realiza- 
tion of  his  social  ideal.  But  instead,  it  is  the  first 
great  step  toward  international  competition  which 
will  ultimately  and  inevitably  result  in  the  shifting  of 
great  industries  until  they  are  concentrated  and  local- 
ized according  to  the  varying  climates  and  natural 
resources  of  the  different  countries  of  the  world,  pre- 
cisely as  they  were  shifted  and  localized  in  the  United 
States  under  the  same  compelling  influences. 

It  will  be  said,  however,  that  this  national  organiza- 
tion of  industry  in  America  took  place  where  there 
was  absolute  free  trade  between  all  the  states,  while 
outside  of  Great  Britain  competition  is  not  free  between 
the  great  manufacturing  nations,  but  hampered  by  a 
protective  tariff. 


A  NEW  WORLD  -  INDUSTRY  27 

CHINA'S  "OPEN  DOOR" 

Two  things  are  to  be  said  in  reply.  First,  even  if  the 
great  manufacturing  nations  had  no  dealings  one  with 
another,  China's  "Open  Door,"  which  means  that  the 
various  nations  may  compete  for  her  trade  on  equal 
terms,  would  be  quite  sufficient  to  arouse  and  sustain  a 
keen  competition  between  them.  Here  is  a  population 
greater  than  that  of  all  Europe.  And  this  giant,  awak- 
ing from  a  nap  of  several  thousand  years,  is  discovering 
that  he  needs  all  the  habiliments  of  modern  civilization. 

The  standard  of  living  is  low  in  China,  but  it  is  rising 
and  will  continue  to  rise.  Elevating  that  standard 
25  per  cent,  would  be  equivalent  commercially  to 
adding  100,000,000  to  the  population.  When  China's 
standard  has  risen  to  one  half  our  own,  it  will  be,  for 
purposes  of  trade,  like  lifting  out  of  the  Pacific  two 
North  American  continents,  peopled  by  two  nations 
like  those  of  the  United  States  and  Canada.  What  an 
addition  to  the  world's  markets  that  will  be!  And 
what  a  tremendous  stimulus  it  will  give  to  the  competi- 
tion of  the  nations  struggling  to  win  it.  Of  course  the 
nation  that  can  lay  down  the  desired  goods  at  the  low- 
est price  will  gain  the  market.  What  will  be  the  de- 
cisive advantage  in  that  struggle?  Technical  skill, 
scientific  knowledge  and  apparatus,  artistic  taste,  and 
manufacturing  secrets  have  all  been  important,  but 
now  all  knowledge  and  skill  ignore  frontiers  and  at 
length  become  international  possessions.  Manufactur- 
ing success  which  is  built  on  any  one  or  even  all  of  these 
rests  on  an  unstable  and  temporary  foundation.  Nor 
can  low  wages  afford  any  better  promise  of  success,  be- 
cause they  cannot  insure  low  labour  cost.  Low  effi- 
ciency almost  invariably  accompanies  a  low  wage. 


28  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

Dr.  Arthur  H.  Smith  in  his  admirable  work,  "Chinese 
Characteristics,"  says:1  "We  have  known  a  foreigner, 
dissatisfied  with  the  slow  progress  of  his  carpenters  in 
lathing,  to  accomplish  while  they  were  eating  their 
dinner  as  much  work  as  all  four  of  them  had  done  in 
hah*  a  day."  Moreover,  wages  are  unstable,  and  rise 
with  the  rising  standard  of  living,  which  is  stimulated 
by  the  introduction  of  machinery.  It  is  the  best 
machine  with  the  best  man  behind  it  that  produces  the 
lowest  labour  cost. 

There  is,  however,  one  advantage  which  is  fixed,  viz., 
natural  resources,  and  when  in  the  close  and  prolonged 
international  competition  of  the  future  the  variable 
advantages  have  been  equalized,  and  therefore  neu- 
tralized, what  nature  has  done  for  a  country  will  prove 
decisive,  and  will  therefore  ultimately  work  out  the 
international  differentiation  of  industries.  A  dozen 
years  ago  Mr.  Carnegie  laid  down  the  axiom  that 
"  raw  materials  have  now  power  to  attract  capital,  and 
also  to  attract  and  develop  labour  for  their  manu- 
facture in  close  proximity,  and  that  skilled  labour  is 
losing  the  power  it  once  had  to  attract  raw  materials 
to  it  from  afar."  Since  then  there  have  been  many 
confirmations  of  this  judgment  that  it  is  much  easier 
and  cheaper  to  move  skilled  labour  and  capital  than 
to  transport  raw  materials. 

The  international  differentiation  of  industries,  which 
must  take  place  under  the  operation  of  economic  laws, 
will  be  accompanied  by  the  reorganization  of  national 
industries,  as  capital  is  withdrawn  from  unprofitable, 
and  reinvested  hi  profitable,  enterprises;  and  both  of 
these  processes,  international  and  national,  are  now 
taking  place. 

»P.  45. 


A  NEW  WORLD  -  INDUSTRY  29 

The  well-known  and  much  lamented  fact  that  the 
arable  land  of  England  is  steadily  passing  out  of  cul- 
tivation affords  an  illustration.  While  the  popula- 
tion of  Great  Britain  from  1874  to  1910  increased  about 
50  per  cent.,  the  acreage  cultivated  for  food  decreased 
22  per  cent.  This  was  not  due  to  a  lack  of  patriotism 
nor  to  shortsightedness  on  the  part  of  Englishmen.  It 
was  because  capital  found  more  profitable  investment 
elsewhere.  Old  England,  like  New  England,  can  no 
longer  afford  to  produce  her  own  food.  Only  her  most 
fertile  soils  and  best  agriculture  can  compete  success- 
fully with  the  cheap  land  of  other  countries.  During 
the  period  in  which  England  has  been  abandoning 
agriculture  she  has  been  creating  wealth  as  never  before 
in  all  her  history.  Great  Britain  is  certainly  vastly 
richer  and  probably  much  more  civilized  and  much 
better  fed  than  the  nation  would  have  been  had  it  re- 
mained primarily  agricultural.  Do  we  forget  the  age- 
long misery  and  degradation  of  England's  "Man  with 
the  hoe?"  This  is  no  apology  for  existing  industrial 
conditions,  many  of  which  are  criminally  bad,  but 
the  remedy  is  not  to  abandon  the  factory  for  the 
farm. 

This  movement  is  farther  advanced  in  England  than 
elsewhere  simply  because  England  is  the  oldest  indus- 
trial country.  The  redistribution  of  population  in  the 
United  States  and  the  disproportionate  growth  of  cities 
not  only  here  and  in  England  but  wherever  manu- 
factures have  been  introduced  are  only  the  early  mani- 
festations of  a  new- world  phenomenon  —  a  part  of  a 
great  cosmic  process  which  few  seem  to  comprehend 
and  against  which  many  who  fail  to  understand  the 
signs  of  the  times  are  vainly  contending.  In  struggling 
against  economic  laws  they  are  fighting  against  the 


30  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

stars  in  their  courses.  They  might  as  well  argue  with 
the  east  wind  or  rebuke  the  incoming  tide. 

But  in  the  profound  changes  which  are  taking  place 
throughout  the  world,  and  especially  hi  the  Celestial 
Empire,  the  question  arises  whether  China  may  not  be- 
come a  manufacturing  nation,  and  stop  her  inviting 
"Open  Door"  with  a  tariff  wall. 

China  is  undoubtedly  destined  to  become  a  great 
manufacturing  nation  and  an  important  part  of  the 
organized  life  of  the  world,  but  it  will  take  time.  During 
the  mediaeval  period  the  several  European  nations 
slowly  attained  individuality  and  became  solidified. 
China  and  India  must  achieve  a  corresponding  con- 
solidation before  they  can  become  component  parts  of 
the  world's  organized  life.  Changes  are  of  course 
much  accelerated  by  modern  conditions,  but  this 
process  which  occupied  several  centuries  in  Europe 
can  hardly  require  less  than  several  generations  in 
Asia. 

For  the  present,  China  need  inspire  no  fear  as  an  in- 
dustrial rival.  A  government  hi  transition  and  an 
entire  civilization  in  a  state  of  flux  make  impossible 
the  stability  which  great  industrial  enterprises  and  the 
free  investment  of  capital  demand.  Cheap  labour  and 
great  natural  resources  will  avail  but  little  in  a  world 
competition  until  China  has  in  good  measure  over- 
come jealousy  of  "the  foreign  devil,"  oriental  deliber- 
ateness,  dearth  of  capital,  popular  superstition,  ignorant 
labour,  the  official  "squeeze,"  universal  graft,  nepotism, 
and  an  inefficiency  of  management  which  is  monu- 
mental. An  international  competition  of  some  scores 
of  years  will  work  out  its  natural  results  before  the 
withdrawal  of  Chinese  markets  shall  cease  to  stimulate 
that  competition. 


A  NEW  WORLD  -INDUSTRY  31 

TARIFF   WALLS 

A  second  reply  may  be  made  to  the  objection  that 
protective  tariffs  will  prevent  the  free  competition 
between  nations  necessary  to  differentiate  the  great 
industries  between  them. 

It  is  of  importance  to  the  world  as  well  as  to  itself 
that  each  nation  should  develop  those  resources  with 
which  nature  has  peculiarly  favoured  it.  This  would 
enable  each  nation  to  produce  the  greatest  possible 
results  with  the  least  possible  effort.  But  any  infant 
industry  could  be  easily  overwhelmed  and  smothered 
by  importations  from  a  country  where  that  industry 
was  already  well  developed;  hence  the  necessity  of  pro- 
tecting that  industry  until  it  is  sufficiently  grown  to 
meet  fair  competition. 

Some  years  ago  the  late  William  E.  Dodge  called  my 
attention  to  an  iron  support  in  the  doorway  of  his  busi- 
ness block  in  New  York.  It  was  an  absolutely  plain 
Doric  pillar  ten  or  twelve  feet  high.  "When  this 
house  was  built,"  said  he,  "that  pillar  could  not  be 
cast  in  America,  and  it  was  necessary  to  send  to  Eng- 
land for  it."  The  iron  sceptre,  so  long  held  by  Eng- 
land, has  now  been  passed  over  to  the  United  States. 
Without  a  protective  tariff  this  gigantic  industry  could 
never  have  been  born,  or  would  have  been  strangled  in 
its  cradle. 

But  to  resort  to  protection  in  order  to  develop  in- 
dustries naturally  foreign  to  our  country  is  quite  a  dif- 
ferent thing.  If  we  were  willing  to  make  a  sufficiently 
enormous  investment,  we  could  undoubtedly  grow 
under  glass  the  tropical  fruits  which  we  now  import; 
and  such  a  "home  industry"  could  be  sustained  by  put- 
ting a  sufficiently  high  tariff  on  imported  fruits.  But 


32  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

how  foolish  it  would  be  to  make  ourselves  pay  ten  or 
twenty  times  as  much  for  such  fruit  as  it  would  cost 
if  grown  under  natural  conditions  and  imported  free, 
all  for  the  sake  of  furnishing  capital  another  oppor- 
tunity for  investment? 

The  same  amount  of  capital  invested  in  the  tropics 
would  produce  vastly  larger  returns,  we  should  get  our 
fruit  for  a  small  fraction  of  the  cost  of  the  artificially 
grown  product,  and  many  more  people  would  be  able 
to  enjoy  it. 

This  is  simply  an  extreme  illustration  of  the  folly  of 
the  protective  policy  which  aims  to  acclimate  indus- 
tries which  superior  natural  advantages  locate  else- 
where. 

When  each  nation  employs  its  capital  and  labour  in 
producing  those  things  which  each  country  can  pro- 
duce more  cheaply  than  any  other,  and  these  products 
are  freely  exchanged,  it  is  quite  obvious  that  the  world's 
return  for  the  capital  invested  and  labour  expended 
will  be  much  larger  than  under  the  existing  protective 
system.  A  division  of  labour  among  individuals 
according  to  the  adaptations  of  each  is  found  to  be 
vastly  more  advantageous  than  for  each  to  undertake 
to  produce  what  each  consumes;  and  the  principle  is 
no  less  applicable  to  nations. 

Statesmanship,  however,  is  supposed  to  require  that 
each  nation  should,  as  nearly  as  possible,  supply  its 
own  wants,  and  especially  its  requirements  for  food. 
This  old  idea  dies  hard,  though  the  whole  trend  of 
modern  civilization  is  against  it.  It  is  inherited  from 
the  thousands  of  years  in  which  commerce  was  slowly 
passing  through  its  first  and  second  stages,  when  a 
nation  must  get  its  food  directly  from  the  soil  or  perish. 
It  is  only  a  little  more  than  a  hundred  years  since  the 


A  NEW  WORLD  -  INDUSTRY  33 

exporting  of  food  was  very  commonly  forbidden  by 
law. 

But  the  attempt  of  an  agricultural  people  to  make 
themselves  more  independent  by  establishing  their 
own  manufactures  renders  them  in  due  time  vastly 
more  dependent.  They  become  increasingly  depend- 
ent on  other  peoples  for  their  raw  materials,  their 
markets,  and  their  food. 

When  manufactures  are  once  begun  competition 
renders  the  multiplication  of  machinery  as  inevitable  as 
if  governed  by  a  law  of  natural  increase.1  And  that 
multiplication  is  much  faster  than  the  increase  of 
population.  During  the  last  hah*  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  while  our  population  was  increasing  three- 
fold our  manufactures  increased  eighteenfold.  Accord- 
ingly as  soon  as  the  home  market  is  supplied  foreign 
markets  become  an  imperative  necessity.  The  nation 
no  sooner  becomes  independent  of  those  who  wish  to 
sell  than  it  becomes  dependent  on  those  who  wish  to 
buy.  Commerce  is  a  matter  of  exchange.  If  there 
are  to  be  exports  there  must  also  be  imports.  Like 
the  arterial  and  veinous  systems  of  the  body,  the  one 
implies  the  other. 

President  McKinley,  who  when  in  Congress  gave  his 
name  to  a  high  tariff  bill,  came  to  see  that  such  a  tariff 
was  a  handicap.  In  his  last  speech,  delivered  the  day 
before  he  was  assassinated,  he  said:  "Our  capacity  to 
produce  has  developed  so  enormously  and  OUT  products 
have  so  multiplied  that  the  problem  of  more  markets 
requires  our  urgent  and  immediate  attention."  After 
referring  to  "our  increasing  surplus,"  he  continued: 
"A  system  which  provides  a  mutual  exchange  of  com- 

lFor  the  demonstration  of  this  proposition  see  the  writer's  "Ex- 
pansion," Chap.  Ill,  "Foreign  Markets  a  New  Necessity." 


34  THE  NEW  WORLD  -LIFE 

modities  is  manifestly  essential  to  the  continued  and 
healthful  growth  of  our  export  trade.  We  must  not 
repose  in  fancied  security  that  we  can  forever  sell  every- 
thing and  buy  little  or  nothing.  .  .  .  What  we 
produce  beyond  our  domestic  consumption  must  have 
vent  abroad.  The  excess  must  be  relieved  through  a 
foreign  outlet,  and  we  should  sell  everywhere  we  can 
and  buy  wherever  the  buying  will  enlarge  our  sales  and 
productions,  and  thereby  make  a  greater  demand  for 
home  labour.  The  period  of  exclusiveness  is  past. 
.  .  .  Commercial  wars  are  unprofitable.  .  .  . 
Reciprocity  treaties  are  in  harmony  with  the  spirit  of 
the  times."  That  public  opinion  in  the  United  States 
has  now  reached  the  same  conclusion  is  indicated  by 
Congressional  adoption  of  President  Taft's  policy  of 
reciprocity  with  Canada. 

A  manufacturing  nation  learns  in  a  couple  of  genera- 
tions, more  or  less,  that  a  rapidly  increasing  surplus 
demands  foreign  markets,  and  reciprocity  in  order  to 
secure  them,  under  threat  of  industrial  paralysis  with 
starvation  in  the  presence  of  superabundance.  Reci- 
procity is  of  course  free  trade  so  far  as  it  goes,  and  its 
advantages  once  enjoyed  naturally  lead  to  the  fullest 
application  of  the  principle. 

As  soon  as  a  nation  has  distanced  all  rivals  hi  a  given 
industry,  it  no  longer  needs  to  protect  that  industry,  so 
that  as  fast  as  international  competition  works  out  the 
differentiation  and  coordination  of  the  world's  indus- 
tries that  result  will  eliminate  international  competition. 
Thus  "cut-throat"  competition  will  at  length  cut  its 
own  throat  —  a  suicide  which  will  be  altogether  com- 
mendable, and  one  on  which  both  heaven  and  earth  will 
smile. 

If  it  were  otherwise,  if  the  powerful  stimulus  of  com- 


A  NEW  WORLD  -  INDUSTRY  35 

petition  were  perpetual,  the  world  would  at  length 
reach  a  terrible  impasse.  The  industrial  revolution  is  on 
its  way  around  the  world.  As  the  nations,  one  after 
another,  undertake  each  to  manufacture  for  itself,  there 
will  follow  two  well-defined  results.  Population  will 
rapidly  increase.  There  is  a  natural  limit  to  an  agricul- 
tural population,  but  practically  none  to  the  density  of 
a  manufacturing  population.  When  Germany  was  an 
agricultural  nation  her  surplus  population  was  com- 
pelled to  emigrate.  Now  that  the  nation  has  become 
chiefly  industrial,  the  large  natural  increase  finds 
employment  at  home.  Thus  emigration  was  reduced 
from  220,000  in  1881  to  25,000  in  1910. 

Another  thing  happens:  As  an  ever-increasing  per- 
centage of  population  enters  industrial  pursuits,  the 
city  grows  disproportionately  and  the  once  agricultural 
nation  imports  more  and  more  food.  Not  one  of  the 
great  manufacturing  nations  of  Europe  now  produces 
its  own  food  supply.  The  United  States  has  been  for 
many  years  the  greatest  agricultural  country  in  the 
world,  but  for  more  than  a  century  an  ever-decreasing 
percentage  of  our  population  has  been  engaged  in 
agriculture;  and  not  a  few  will  be  surprised  to  learn 
that  during  the  year  ending  June  30, 1910,  we  imported 
food  to  the  value  of  over  $512,000,000.  And  if  we, 
with  such  an  extent  of  latitude  and  longitude  and  a 
corresponding  variety  of  climates,  and  with  a  popula- 
tion of  only  twenty-six  to  the  square  mile,  import  food, 
what  of  European  nations,  Germany,  for  instance,  which 
is  57,000  square  miles  smaller  than  our  one  State  of 
Texas,  and  has  a  population  of  310  to  the  square  mile? 

If  under  the  whip  and  spur  of  competition  these  two 
tendencies  were  to  become  world-wide,  where  would  a 
manufacturing  world  find  its  food? 


36  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

But,  as  has  been  shown,  by  the  coordination  and 
integration  of  the  world's  various  industries,  including 
agriculture,  there  will  be  reached  at  length  an  industrial 
peace,  a  world  equilibrium,  which  will  forever  do  away 
with  the  jealousy  and  strife,  the  fear  and  fraud,  the 
strain  and  waste,  of  selfish  competition. 


CHAPTER  III 

A  NEW  WORLD-PEACE 

WITH  Europe  an  armed  camp,  with  the  nations 
building  battleships  at  one  another,  and  with  eastern 
peoples  as  well  as  western  beating  their  ploughshares 
into  swords  and  their  pruning-hooks  into  spears,  there 
would  seem  to  be  little  prospect  of  universal  and  per- 
manent peace.  But  there  are  forces  at  work  in  the 
world  which  are  destined  to  wage  successful  warfare 
against  war  and  ultimately  to  destroy  its  destruction. 

"Universal  peace,"  says  Professor  Seligman,1  "can 
exist  only  when  one  country  is  so  powerful  that  it 
dominates  all  the  others  —  as  in  the  case  of  imperial 
Rome  —  or  when  the  chief  nations  have  grown  to  be 
on  such  a  footing  of  equality  that  none  dares  to  offend 
its  neighbour,  and  the  minor  countries  are  protected 
by  the  mutual  jealousies  of  the  great  powers."  The 
latter  alternative  represents  approximately  the  existing 
unstable  equilibrium.  The  former  is  a  very  common 
prescription  for  ending  strife,  and  as  old  and  futile  as 
it  is  common.  Napoleon  wanted  to  establish  a  world's 
peace  by  having  only  one  empire,  with  himself  at  the 
head  of  it;  and  it  was  precisely  that  kind  of  a  struggle 
for  peace  which  plunged  Europe  into  the  horrors  of  the 
Napoleonic  wars.  He  was  saner,  however,  when  at  St. 
Helena  he  said,  "The  more  I  study  the  world,  the  more 
am  I  convinced  of  the  inability  of  brute  force  to  create 

'"The  Economic  Interpretation  of  History,"  p.  129. 
37 


38  THE  NEW  WORLD  -LIFE 

anything  durable."  There  are  various  races  each  of 
which  would  like  to  end  the  race  conflict  by  the  com- 
plete dominance  of  one.  For  several  centuries  Christian 
and  Mohammedan  strove  to  establish  a  lasting  peace, 
each  by  trying  to  slay  the  other;  and  there  are  various 
Christian  sects  to-day  praying  that  they  "all  may  be 
one,"  the  principal  hindrance  to  the  answer  of  their 
united  prayer  and  unanimous  desire  being  that  each 
sect  wishes  to  be  that  particular  "one." 

But  such  methods  of  achieving  the  perfect  peace  of 
perfect  oneness  are  utterly  unnatural.  Nature  abhors 
identities  as  much  as  she  does  vacuums.  The  heavenly 
bodies  are  not  all  suns  nor  are  they  all  planets,  nor  do 
they  all  move  in  like  orbits.  "One  star  differeth  from 
another  star  in  glory."  What  infinite  variety  has 
nature,  what  numberless  genera  and  species  and  fami- 
lies? And  nature  sees  to  it  that  individuals  of  the  same 
variety,  and  even  offspring  of  the  same  parents,  differ 
from  one  another.  It  is  these  differences  that  make 
possible  the  glorious  harmonies  of  life.  If  all  life  were 
the  same,  it  may  be  questioned  whether  any  life  would 
be  worth  while. 

God's  method  is  not  unity  through  identity  but 
through  variety,  through  differences  which  supple- 
ment and  serve  one  another.  If  your  two  hands  were 
duplicates  each  of  the  other,  they  would  be  far  less 
useful.  They  are  like,  yet  different;  and  their  differ- 
ence is  no  less  important  than  then*  likeness.  Seneca 
says:  "God  divided  man  into  men  so  they  might  help 
one  another";  and  he  gave  them  different  gifts  that 
they  might  be  mutually  dependent.  The  most  perfect 
oneness  possible  to  human  beings  is  that  of  the  mar- 
riage relation,  which  is  based  no  less  on  what  the  sexes 
have  in  difference  than  on  what  they  have  in  common. 


A  NEW  WORLD  -  PEACE  39 

Whether  in  the  individual,  the  family,  the  community, 
or  the  nation,  wherever  there  is  one  life,  we  find  dif- 
ferent members  and  organs  having  different  functions, 
and  rendering  different  services,  together  with  common 
aims,  common  sympathies,  and  common  interests;  or 
in  a  word  we  find  differentiation  and  integration. 

If  the  reader  will  recall  the  two  preceding  chapters, 
he  will  note  that  hi  them  were  shown  these  two  proc- 
esses taking  place  on  a  world- wide  scale.  These  two 
movements,  each  of  universal  scope,  are  coordinate, 
and  the  progress  of  each  facilitates  that  of  the  other. 
By  means  of  the  two  there  is  being  organized  a  world- 
life  with  the  profound  changes  which  that  implies.1 

Nations  have  long  looked  on  each  other  as  necessary 
rivals,  if  not  as  natural  enemies.  They  have  sought  to 
live  separate  lives;  they  have  pursued  selfish  and, 
therefore,  shortsighted  policies;  they  have  plotted  and 
warred  to  weaken  each  other;  they  have  set  up  arti- 
ficial barriers  to  commercial  intercourse;  they  have 
erected  national  instead  of  universal  standards  of 
ethics;  and  have  honoured  national  bigotry  as  patri- 
otism. But  the  same  forces  which  united  separate 
and  jealous  communities,  of  circumscribed  lives  and 
conflicting  interests,  into  a  common  national  life  are 
still  at  work,  and  are  now  organizing  separate  nations 
into  a  common  world-life,  which  will  afford  the  same 
basis  and  guaranty  of  permanent  peace  between  the 
nations  that  the  national  life  provides  for  peace  be- 
tween its  constituent  communities. 

This  will  constitute  a  new  world-peace.  Not  one 
depending  on  treaties,  or  skilful  diplomacy,  or  mutual 
fear  and  equal  preparedness  for  war,  but  on  the  com- 

*For  a  further  discussion  of  the  subject  see  the  author's  "Ex- 
pansion," pp.  214-246. 


40  THE  NEW  WORLD  -LIFE 

mon  interests  and  sympathies,  and  on  the  mutual 
needs  and  services  of  a  world  organism,  in  which  each 
nation  is  a  member  of  a  world  body-politic. 

Militarist  authors  seem  to  be  wholly  unaware  of  this 
inevitable  development  of  a  world-life  under  the 
operation  of  economic  laws,  or  they  ignore  its  signifi- 
cance. They  insist  not  only  that  war  is  unavoidable 
but  that  it  is  a  biological  necessity.  Let  Von  Moltke's 
famous  letter  to  Bluntschli  speak  for  the  whole  class. 
"A  perpetual  peace,"  says  the  great  Field  Marshal, "  is 
a  dream,  and  not  even  a  beautiful  dream.  War  is  one 
of  the  elements  of  order  in  the  world  established  by 
God.  The  noblest  virtues  of  man  are  developed  there- 
in. Without  war  the  world  would  degenerate  and  dis- 
appear in  a  morass  of  materialism."  Men  whose  minds 
are  saturated  with  the  science  of  brute  force  are  not 
likely  to  appreciate  the  quiet  compulsion  of  economic 
laws,  and  those  whose  hope  of  promotion  and  fame  de- 
pends on  war  are  hardly  the  ones  to  contemplate  it  in  a 
judicial  spirit. 

The  Hon.  John  Jay  told  me  that  when  he  was  United 
States  Minister  to  the  Austrian  court  he  met  Prince 
Bismarck,  who  related  to  him  how  he  assured  himself 
that  the  German  armies  were  really  prepared  for  action 
just  before  the  outbreak  of  the  Franco-Prussian  War. 

Bismarck  had  invited  Von  Moltke  and  another 
general  of  high  rank  to  dine  with  him  on  the  day  that 
King  William  and  the  French  ambassador  met  for  the 
final  conference.  At  the  dinner  table  the  great  Chan- 
cellor said  to  his  guests,  "  Gentlemen,  I  have  heard  from 
the  Kaiser,  and  learn  that  everything  has  been  settled 
amicably.  We  shall  have  no  need  of  your  services." 
"Instantly, "said  the  Prince,"  the  two  generals  sprangto 
their  feet  with  exclamations  of  the  utmost  disappoint- 


A  NEW  WORLD -PEACE  41 

ment  and  disgust;  and  then  I  knew  that  we  were  ready 
to  fight." 

Von  Moltke  knew  perfectly  the  condition  of  his 
army,  and  was  master  of  the  science  of  war,  but  that 
knowledge  in  no  way  qualified  him  to  speak  of  the  place 
of  war  in  the  economy  of  nature,  or  of  its  value  to  man- 
kind. An  executioner  might  be  the  most  skilful  heads- 
man in  all  the  realm,  but  that  fact  would  hardly  fit 
him  to  pass  on  the  question  of  capital  punishment 
while  he  fondly  fingered  his  blade. 

Those  who  must  needs  see  visions  of  battlefields,  for 
the  horrors  of  which  they  share  the  responsibility,  are  in 
sore  need  of  some  fallacy  with  which  to  fool  themselves, 
if  they  want  to  sleep  nights;  and  such  a  fallacy  is  found 
in  their  appeal  to  the  theory  of  natural  selection. 
Vice-Admiral  Ahlefeld  (retired)  of  the  German  navy 
contends  that  "deer  and  antelope  thrive  best  where 
there  are  lions  and  tigers  to  kill  them;  that  civilization 
gets  forward  fastest  on  a  powder  cart,  and  that  enduring 
world-wide  peace  would  mean  degeneracy  and  be  a 
misfortune  for  the  human  race." 

When  primitive  man  and  his  fellow  struggled  bare- 
handed for  a  mate,  like  two  stags,  the  survival  of  the 
fittest  illustrated  the  natural  law.  But  the  first  weapon 
introduced  an  artificial  element,  and  the  invention  of 
firearms  removed  war  from  the  operation  of  the  law  of 
natural  selection  so  far  as  physical  "fitness"  was  con- 
cerned. A  weakened,  half -starved  peasant  could  then 
triumph  over  the  bravest  and  mightiest  knight  long 
before  sword  or  lance  could  reach  him.  A  bullet  has 
no  such  respect  of  persons  as  a  French  nobleman  of  the 
eighteenth  century  attributed  to  God  when  he  said, 
"The  Almighty  would  hesitate  a  long  time  before  he 
would  damn  a  gentleman."  Physique  counts  for  little 


42  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

or  nothing  in  battle  now.  A  dwarf  can  aim  a  gun  and 
pull  a  trigger  as  well  as  a  giant,  and  the  giant  makes 
much  the  larger  target.  The  little  Japanese  beat  the 
big  Russians.  The  Arabs  who  rushed  to  death  en  masse 
before  Kitchener's  rapid-firing  guns  lacked  neither 
strength  nor  courage.  In  modern  warfare  it  is  not  the 
physical  superiority  of  the  soldiers  which  is  decisive, 
but  equipment,  numbers,  and  generalship.  War  no 
longer  helps  to  eliminate  the  unfit  and  thus  to  improve 
the  stock.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  the  finest  physical 
specimens  who  are  demanded  for  armies,  and  who  are 
killed  off  or  maimed  in  battle,  so  that  every  war  serves 
to  depress  the  physical  standard  of  the  nations  engaged 
in  it.  "Three  million  men  —  the  elite  of  Europe  — 
perished  in  the  Napoleonic  wars.  It  is  said  that  after 
those  wars  the  height  standard  of  the  French  adult 
population  fell  abruptly  one  inch.  However  that  may 
be,  it  is  quite  certain  that  the  physical  fitness  of  the 
French  people  was  immensely  lowered  by  the  drain  of 
the  Napoleonic  wars,  since,  as  the  result  of  a  century 
of  militarism,  France  is  compelled  every  few  years  to 
reduce  the  standard  of  physical  fitness  in  order  to  keep 
up  her  effective  military  strength,  so  that  now  even 
three-foot  dwarfs  are  impressed.  There  is  no  height 
limit  at  all."1 

Surely  the  advocates  of  war  are  reduced  to  a  forlorn 
hope  when  they  have  to  argue  that  the  race  will  degen- 
erate unless  its  best  physical  specimens  are  killed  off  at 
frequent  intervals! 

There  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  military  men  are 
acquainted  with  the  law  of  evolution,  and  the  use  they 
make  of  it  shows  that  they  are  not.  Let  a  scholar  and 
a  student  of  evolution  speak.  Says  Professor  John 

'Norman  Angells'  "Great  Illusion,"  p.  217.  note. 


A  NEW  WORLD  -  PEACE  43 

Fiske:  "As  regards  the  significance  of  man's  position 
in  the  universe,  this  gradual  elimination  of  strife  is  a 
fact  of  utterly  unparalleled  grandeur.  Words  cannot 
do  justice  to  such  a  fact.  It  means  that  the  wholesale 
destruction  of  life,  which  has  heretofore  characterized 
evolution  ever  since  life  began,  and  through  which  the 
higher  forms  of  organic  existence  have  been  produced, 
must  presently  come  to  an  end  hi  the  case  of  the 
chief  of  God's  creatures.  It  means  that  the  universal 
struggle  for  existence,  having  succeeded  in  bringing 
forth  that  consummate  product  of  creative  energy,  the 
Human  Soul,  has  done  its  work  and  will  presently  cease. 
In  the  lower  regions  of  organic  life  it  must  go  on,  but  as 
a  determining  factor  in  the  highest  work  of  evolution  it 
will  disappear."1  Again  the  same  author  says  else- 
where: "The  action  of  natural  selection  upon  man  is 
coming  to  an  end,  and  his  future  development  will  be 
accomplished  through  the  direct  adaptation  of  his 
wonderfully  plastic  intelligence  to  the  circumstances 
in  which  it  is  placed.  Hence  it  has  appeared  that  war 
and  all  forms  of  strife,  having  ceased  to  discharge  their 
normal  function  and  having  thus  become  unnecessary, 
will  slowly  die  out."2 

Von  Moltke's  declaration  that  the  noblest  virtues  of 
man  are  developed  in  war  is  as  contrary  to  science  as  it 
is  repugnant  to  religion  and  ethics.  Let  Mr.  Darwin 
himself  speak  on  this  point.  He  says:  "Important  as 
the  struggle  for  existence  has  been,  and  even  still  is, 
yet  as  far  as  the  highest  part  of  man's  nature  is  con- 
cerned, there  are  other  agencies  more  important.  For 
the  moral  qualities  are  advanced  either  directly  or  in- 
directly much  more  through  the  effect  of  habit,  the 

"'The  Destiny  of  Man,"  pp.  96,  97. 
'"The  Idea  of  God,"  p.  163. 


44  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

reasoning  powers,  instruction,  religion,  etc.,  than 
through  natural  selection."1 

Among  men  the  struggle  for  life  has  passed  from  the 
biological  to  the  economic  field,  and  in  the  preceding 
chapter  it  was  shown  how  the  competitive  industrial 
struggle  between  the  nations  would  at  length  arrest 
itself  by  creating  a  world-life  involving  the  common 
interests  and  interdependence  of  its  constituent  nations. 

It  will  be  objected  that  the  tenacity  with  which 
every  nation  clings  to  its  own  sovereignty  will  make 
such  a  world  organization  impossible.  But  the  several 
German  states  uniting  to  form  the  Empire,  and  the 
thirteen  original  States  or  colonies  joining  to  establish 
the  Union,  show  that  sovereign  political  entities  are 
willing  to  relinquish  a  portion  of  their  authority  when  a 
sufficient  motive  is  offered. 

The  motives  for  such  a  world  organization  are  gam- 
ing strength  every  year.  By  no  means  the  least  is  the 
staggering  load  of  militarism,  involving  the  double 
financial  burden  of  army  and  navy  —  Pelion  piled 
upon  Ossa.  Europe's  war  expenditure  in  time  of  peace 
is  now  $2,000,000,000  annually. 

In  this  connection  glance  at  the  rapid  increase  of 
investments  in  foreign  countries  which  are  the  fruit- 
ful cause  of  international  complications.  With  the 
exception  of  Europe  and  parts  of  the  United  States  the 
development  of  the  earth's  natural  resources  is  only 
begun.  The  vast  amount  of  capital  needed  for  the 
development  of  Canada,  Mexico,  Central  and  South 
America,  Australia,  Africa,  and  all  Asia  cannot  be 
created  in  these  countries  rapidly  enough.  It  is  accord- 
ingly flowing  in  ever-enlarging  streams  from  Europe 
and  the  United  States.  American  manufacturers  have 

'"Descent  of  Man,"  second  edition,  p.  618. 


A  NEW  WORLD  -  PEACE  45 

spent  $300,000,000  on  subsidiary  factories  in  Canada, 
and  our  capitalists  have  invested  $1,000,000,000  in 
Mexico.  And  not  only  are  we  sending  money  to 
undeveloped  countries,  but  we  invest  upward  of 
$500,000,000  every  year  in  the  stocks  and  bonds  of 
Europe.  It  is  estimated  also  that  Americans  have 
spent  $100,000,000  in  planting  factories  in  the  Old 
World.  France  produces  for  investment  an  annual 
surplus  of  half  a  billion,  a  large  proportion  of  which 
goes  abroad.  She  has  already  loaned  $15,000,000,000 
to  other  nations,  and  her  present  foreign  investments 
amount  to  nearly  $160  for  every  inhabitant.  She  has 
given  hostages  to  all  peoples,  for  there  is  not  a  nation  in 
the  world  that  she  could  fight  without  injuring  the 
foreign  property  of  her  own  people.  According  to 
consular  reports  Great  Britain,  Germany,  and  France 
hold  more  than  $63,690,000  of  paper  securities  which 
belong  to  the  various  nations  of  the  globe.1  Europe 
holds  more  than  a  billion  dollars  of  national  debts 
against  the  South  American  republics.  At  the  begin- 
ning of  the  century  Germany  had  $457,000,000  invested 
hi  South  America.  There  are  $2,000,000,000  of  British 
money  invested  in  the  industries  of  Argentina  alone. 
The  English  statistician,  Mulhall,  told  us  a  dozen 
years  ago  that  two  thirds  of  all  Great  Britain's  capital 
created  since  1882  had  gone  into  foreign  investments. 
And  in  1909  British  investments  abroad  had  reached 
a  total  of  $13,500,000,000  scattered  over  the  world. 
The  late  King  Edward  drew  a  much  larger  revenue  from 
the  United  States  than  George  III  ever  exacted  from 
the  American  colonies.2  Thus  are  foreign  hi  vestments 
binding  the  nations  of  the  world  into  one  bundle  of 

1  Daily  Consular  and  Trade  Reports,  May  9,  1912. 
'Harold  Bolce  in  "The  New  Internationalism,"  p.  55. 


46  THE  NEW  WORLD -LIFE 

common  interest,  and  at  the  same  time  preparing  con- 
ditions which  will  require  world  legislation  or  adjudi- 
cation. 

We  have  already  seen  how  commerce  is  bringing  the 
nations  into  closer  relations.  The  Greek  word  mean- 
ing to  exchange  also  means  to  reconcile.  The  exchange 
of  products  tends  to  remove  prejudices  and  animosities 
because  it  extends  acquaintance,  and,  what  is  more, 
because  it  creates  interdependence.  The  prosperity  of 
every  nation  will  depend  more  and  more  on  that  of 
others  as  manufactures  increase  and  their  products  are 
exchanged.  And  as  the  well-being  of  each  nation 
passes  increasingly  into  the  power  of  others,  new  rights 
and  obligations  will  be  created  for  the  protection  and 
enforcement  of  which  a  world-wide  authority  will  be 
necessary. 

The  modern  system  of  credit  is  something  that  those 
who  believe  the  world  will  always  permit  itself  to  be 
threatened  with  the  convulsions  of  war  seem  to  leave 
out  of  account.  Down  to  the  discovery  of  America, 
which  was  a  powerful  stimulus  to  commerce,  wealth 
had  consisted  almost  wholly  in  real  estate.  But  with 
the  development  of  commerce  the  volume  of  business 
became  vastly  greater  than  could  be  done  on  a  cash 
basis,  and  a  system  of  credit  was  rendered  inevitable. 
The  amount  of  gold  in  circulation  is  only  a  small  frac- 
tion of  the  vast  sum  represented  by  the  total  trans- 
actions of  the  business  world;  but  it  suffices  as  long  as 
confidence  prevails.  When,  however,  that  confidence 
is  lost,  payments  are  demanded  which  the  currency 
of  the  world  cannot  meet,  hence  panic  and  failure. 
Then  money  goes  into  safe  hiding,  and  industry  suffers 
paralysis.  Some  one  says  that  nothing  is  so  timid  as  a 
million  dollars  except  two  millions.  It  does  not  require 


A  NEW  WORLD  -  PEACE  47 

actual  war  to  frighten  capital ;  even  a  threat  of  it  is  suf- 
ficient to  send  securities  tumbling. 

There  are  other  inducements  which  might  help  to 
reconcile  nations  to  the  idea  of  relinquishing  a  portion  of 
their  authority  to  a  world  organization  for  the  sake  of 
making  war  impossible,  but  I  have  confined  myself  to 
economic  considerations  because  I  wish  to  compare  the 
nations  of  the  western  world  to-day  with  the  Thirteen 
States  or  colonies  just  prior  to  the  formation  of  the 
national  Government. 

Let  there  be  no  doubt  that  it  was  commercial  neces- 
sity which  induced  the  States  to  surrender  some  of 
their  authority  to  the  federal  Government.  Said 
Danial  Webster:  "WTiatever  we  may  think  of  it  now, 
the  Constitution  had  its  immediate  origin  in  the  con- 
viction of  the  necessity  for  uniformity  or  identity  in 
commercial  regulations."1 

When  the  Panama  Canal  is  opened  the  whole  occi- 
dental world  —  North  and  South  America,  together 
with  all  Europe  —  will  be  more  closely  related  in  point 
of  time  and  common  interests  than  were  the  original 
Thirteen  States  when  the  necessities  of  commerce 
forced  them  to  form  the  compact  of  the  Union.  The 
two  geographical  extremes  of  the  colonies  were  as  far 
separated  as  Berlin  and  the  Barbary  States,  or  as 
London  and  the  Black  Sea.  An  old  lady  in  New  York 
has  in  her  possession  a  journal  written  by  an  aunt, 
which  describes  a  trip  from  New  York  City  to  Albany 
and  return  early  in  the  nineteenth  century.  The  voy- 
age up  the  river  occupied  nine  days,  and  the  return 
voyage  seven.  The  sixteen  days  of  my  lady's  journey 
would  now  suffice  for  a  trip  from  New  York  to  Albany 
and  return  plus  another  across  the  Atlantic  and  Europe 
'Quoted  by  Mr.  Bridgman,  "World  Organization,"  p.  47. 


48  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

to  Constantinople.  And  it  must  be  remembered  that 
this  voyage  of  nine  days,  due  north,  carried  the  travel- 
ler only  halfway  across  one  of  the  original  States. 

We  must  also  remember  that  roads  were  then  few 
and  poor,  and  that  railway  travel  and  steam  naviga- 
tion had  never  been  thought  of.  To  have  made  one's 
way  at  that  time  from  the  north  of  Massachusetts 
colony  (now  the  State  of  Maine)  to  the  southern  part 
of  Georgia  would  have  involved  much  more  time,  toil, 
expense,  and  exposure  than  to  travel  to-day  from  San 
Francisco  to  Jerusalem  or  from  St.  Petersburg  to  Val- 
paraiso. Washington  had  been  buried  for  two  weeks 
before  his  death  was  known  in  Boston.  And  as  late 
as  1828  it  took  a  month  for  the  country  to  learn  the 
result  of  the  presidential  election. 

It  is  quite  true  that  the  peoples  of  Europe  and  of 
North  and  South  America  have  differences  of  blood, 
language,  and  religion  as  well  as  differences  of  institu- 
tions and  laws.  It  is  also  true  that  the  organic  laws 
of  the  colonies  were  very  unlike,  and  that  there  were 
also  important  differences  of  blood.  While  Massa- 
chusetts and  Virginia  were  of  pure  English  stock, 
settlers  from  Ireland,  Sweden,  France,  Holland,  and 
southern  Germany  formed  very  important  elements  in 
the  other  colonies. 

But  if  these  differences  between  occidental  nations 
to-day  are  greater  than  were  the  like  differences  be- 
tween the  colonies,  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  econo- 
mic interests  are  incomparably  greater  now  than  then, 
and  it  was  the  economic  interests  which  were  the 
decisive  consideration  in  forming  the  Union. 

Each  of  the  colonies  was  agricultural;  each  was  capa- 
ble of  living  within  itself;  there  was  nothing  corre- 
sponding to  the  existing  interdependence  of  western 


A  NEW  WORLD  -PEACE  49 

nations  for  food  and  for  other  necessaries  of  life. 
Manufactures  and  commerce  had  begun,  but  there  was 
nothing  to  suggest  the  vast  international  investments 
and  the  sensitive  system  of  credit  which  now  exist. 

There  are  a  hundred  times  as  many  people  whose 
well-being  is  involved,  and  a  thousand  times  as  much 
wealth  at  stake  in  Europe  and  the  Americas  to-day  as 
there  were  in  the  colonies  at  the  close  of  the  Revolu- 
tionary War.  Of  course  the  federation  of  the  western 
powers  would  mean  the  federation  of  the  world.  And 
I  venture  the  assertion  that  there  is  a  much  greater 
need  of  the  United  States  of  the  World  to-day  than  there 
was  of  the  United  States  of  America  four  generations 
ago.  This  need  is  increasing  and  will  continue  to  in- 
crease until  all  opposition  is  overwhelmed  and  Im- 
manuel  Kant's  prophecy  of  "a  State  of  Nations"  is 
fulfilled. 

The  federation  of  the  world  is  the  less  difficult  be- 
cause we  have  before  our  eyes  the  accomplished  fact  of 
forty-eight  commonwealths,  several  of  which  are  each 
larger  than  Great  Britain  and  Ireland,  and  twenty-two 
of  which  are  each  larger  than  England  and  Wales, 
federated  into  a  nation  which  stretches  across  the  con- 
tinent and  is  as  large  as  all  Europe. 

Our  Constitution,  which  Gladstone  pronounced 
"the  most  wonderful  work  ever  struck  off  at  a  given 
time  by  the  brain  and  purpose  of  man,"  solves  the  prob- 
lem of  great  states  and  small,  living  together  in  per- 
fect security,  without  treaties  or  jealousies,  without 
armament  or  fear. 

Under  such  conditions  armies  and  navies  are  irrele- 
vant; greatness  and  influence  do  not  depend  on  area 
or  numbers,  and  lust  for  territorial  aggrandizement, 
which  Gladstone  called  the  "original  sin  of  nations/' 


50  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

does  not  exist.  Massachusetts  would  not  be  a  whit 
more  the  leader  of  all  the  States  in  education  and  legis- 
lation if  she  had  the  area  of  Texas,  which  is  thirty-two 
times  her  own. 

Is  not  the  spectacle  of  America  —  "one  from  many" 
—  more  than  a  suggestion  to  the  nations  of  the  earth? 

But  the  federation  of  the  world  is  something  more 
than  a  great  hope,  a  glorious  vision.  There  is  an  active 
movement  in  the  direction  of  organization  which  shows 
actual  beginnings.  Since  the  Congress  of  Vienna,  in 
1815,  which  adjusted  the  questions  left  by  the  Napole- 
onic campaigns,  there  have  been  hi  Europe  and  Amer- 
ica more  than  seven  hundred  such  assemblages  of  real 
importance,  counting  those  both  of  a  public  and  of  a  pri- 
vate character.  These  congresses  have  done  much  to 
express  and  to  create  public  opinion,  to  guide  the  action 
of  different  powers,  and  gradually  to  unite  the  forces 
of  civilization. 

It  would  be  only  a  natural  evolution  if  the  Inter- 
parliamentary Union  should  be  officially  transformed 
into  the  lower  chamber  of  an  international  parliament, 
of  which  the  Hague  Conference  constituted  the  upper 
chamber. 

There  is  awaiting  such  a  legislative  body  an  impor- 
tant docket  —  such  subjects  as  world  coinage,  weights 
and  measures,  customs  and  postal  regulations,  arbi- 
tration, world  patents,  sanitary  regulations  for  ports, 
industrial  interests,  and  the  control  of  world  monop- 
olies. Of  course  the  principle  of  home  rule,  which  ob- 
tains in  the  United  States,  would  be  extended  to 
this  world  parliament,  limiting  its  jurisdiction  to  world 
interests. 

It  would  be  a  natural  and  not  a  difficult  step  to  ele- 
vate the  Hague  tribunal  into  the  Supreme  Court  of 


A  NEW  WORLD  -  PEACE  51 

the  World.  There  is  prospect  that  the  International 
Court  of  Arbitral  Justice,  created  by  general  agreement, 
will  be  erected  at  The  Hague  at  a  date  not  remote.  It 
is  an  interesting  fact  that  in  Central  America  there  is  a 
real  international  court  of  justice  for  five  nations,  with 
compulsory  jurisdiction  over  all  their  differences ; — 
"the  first  institution  in  the  world,"  says  Mr.  Albert 
K.  Smiley,  "which  has  sat  in  judgment  on  nations." 

A  world  executive  would  be  created  to  carry  into 
effect  the  declarations  of  the  world  will.  Mr.  Bridg- 
man,  in  his  work,  "World  Federation,"1  calls  attention 
to  several  minor  executive  offices  of  world  scope  which 
have  already  been  created,  one  the  permanent  secre- 
tary of  the  Universal  Postal  Union,  whose  office  is  at 
Berne,  Switzerland;  another  is  that  of  the  Interna- 
tional Committee  of  Weights  and  Measures;  and  a  third 
is  the  Permanent  Administration  Council  in  connection 
with  the  Hague  court.  Doubtless  many  subordinate 
executives  will  be  required  before  a  world  president 
appears. 

From  the  above  it  seems  not  too  much  to  say  that  a 
world  government  is  now  incipient,  and  that  its  three 
great  branches  already  exist  hi  embryo.  I  cannot 
doubt  that  its  complete  evolution  will  accompany  the 
development  of  the  new  world-life  which  is  being  or- 
ganized under  the  conditions  of  the  new  civilization. 

When  the  United  States  of  the  World  is  an  accom- 
plished fact  disarmament  will  of  course  follow,  save  only 
a  sufficient  force  on  sea  and  land  to  do  the  world's 
police  duty. 

The  vision  of  a  world's  peace  seen  by  Isaiah,  sung 
by  Dante,  nobly  planned  by  Henry  of  Navarre  in  his 
"Great  Design,"  and  powerfully  advoated  in  Kant's 

'Chapter  VI. 


52  THE  NEW  WORLD -LIFE 

"Eternal  Peace,"  will  surely  be  realized  as  one  of  God's 
eternal  designs,  declared  alike  by  revelation  and  reason, 
and  infallibly  wrought  out  by  His  unfailing  laws. 

"Force  and  Right,"  said  Rochefoucauld,  "rule  the 
world;  Force  till  Right  is  ready."  Force  —  brute 
force  —  has  long  held  the  sceptre,  but  in  these  great 
days  it  no  longer  requires  the  eye  of  a  prophet  to  see 
Right  preparing  her  coronation  robes,  and  making 
ready  to  ascend  the  world's  willing  throne. 


CHAPTER  IV 

A  NEW  WORLD-IDEAL 

SOCRATES  in  the  "Phaedo"  compares  the  people  of 
his  day,  to  whom  the  lands  about  the  Aegean  were  the 
whole  world,  to  ants  and  frogs  about  a  marshy  pond. 
Where  would  he  find  a  fitting  comparison  for  people  of 
the  same  sort  in  our  day?  The  development  of  a 
world-life  bids  us  pry  out  our  horizon,  and  learn  to  think 
in  world  terms. 

But  it  is  more  difficult  to  actualize  the  far  future  than 
to  make  real  the  people  who  live  beyond  our  horizon. 
Books  of  travel  and  photographs  help  the  imagination 
when  it  journeys  outward,  but  not  when  we  direct  it 
forward. 

There  are,  however,  materials  from  which  to  shape  a 
world-ideal  which  shall  beckon  us.  Facts  are  God's 
alphabet,  from  which  we  may  decipher  tendencies,  and 
tendencies  are  prophetic. 

From  the  lowest  forms  of  life  on  this  planet  up  to  the 
high  level  where  the  first  man  was  achieved  —  however 
short  the  steps,  however  long  the  time  —  marks  a  prog- 
ress beyond  all  measurement.  Again  from  the  first 
cave-dweller  to  a  Lincoln  or  a  Gladstone  the  intellect- 
ual and  spiritual  distance  is  interstellar  in  its  immen- 
sity. And  can  any  one  suppose  that  this  upward 
tendency  of  life  which  for  uncounted  millenniums  has 
asserted  itself  is  now  arrested?  Says  Professor  Fiske: 
"The  most  essential  feature  of  man  is  his  improvable- 

53 


54  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

ness.  .  .  .  This  psychical  development  of  man  is 
destined  to  go  on  in  the  future  as  it  has  gone  on  in  the 
past.  The  creative  energy  which  has  been  at  work 
through  the  bygone  eternity  is  not  going  to  become 
quiescent  to-morrow."1 

While  the  belief  that  humanity  is  to  progress  beyond 
the  ills  which  have  marred  every  generation  is  enor- 
mously strengthened  by  the  doctrine  of  evolution,  it  is 
not  dependent  on  that  doctrine.  Immanuel  Kant, 
recognized  as  the  world's  greatest  philosopher  since 
Plato  and  Aristotle,  and  who  died  before  Darwin  was 
born,  regarded  progress  as  the  cardinal  principle  for 
the  interpretation  of  history.  He  says:  "The  idea 
of  human  history  viewed  as  founded  upon  the  assump- 
tion of  a  universal  plan  in  nature  gives  us  a  new  ground 
of  hope,  opening  up  to  us  a  consoling  view  of  the  future, 
in  which  the  human  race  appears  in  the  far  distance  as 
having  worked  itself  up  to  a  condition  in  which  all  the 
germs  implanted  in  it  by  nature  will  be  fully  developed 
and  its  destiny  here  on  earth  fulfilled."  This  he  re- 
garded as  "  a  justification  of  nature,  or,  rather  let  us  say, 
of  Providence" 

But  while  such  wide  comparisons  reveal  a  progress 
which  is  obvious  to  the  most  dyspeptic  vision,  there  is 
always  room  for  the  moralists  who  deplore  the  degener- 
acy of  their  own  times.  They  remind  us  of  the  leech- 
like  tenacity  with  which  greed  and  graft  have  fastened 
themselves  on  political  and  business  life,  of  the  mad 
rush  for  wealth,  and  of  the  dissipation  and  extrava- 
gance of  the  rich,  while  we  are  called  upon  to  sigh  for 
the  honest  industry,  the  sturdy  genuineness,  and  the 
self-sacrificing  patriotism  of  the  fathers. 

In    this    connection,    a   letter   written    by    George 

l"The  Destiny  of  Man,"  pp.  71,  72. 


A  NEW  WORLD -IDEAL  55 

Washington  in  1778  to  his  friend  Benjamin  Harrison 
is  interesting.  He  says:  "If  I  was  to  be  called  upon 
to  draw  a  picture  of  the  times  and  of  men,  from  what  I 
have  seen  and  heard  and  hi  part  known,  I  should  in 
one  word  say  that  idleness,  dissipation,  and  extrava- 
gance seem  to  have  laid  hold  of  most  of  them;  that 
speculation,  peculation  and  an  insatiable  thirst  for 
riches  seem  to  have  got  the  better  of  every  other  con- 
sideration and  almost  every  order  of  men.  I  need  not 
repeat  to  you  that  I  am  alarmed  and  wish  to  see  my 
countrymen  roused."1  "It  is  said  that  the  oldest- 
known  piece  of  writing  hi  Egyptian  hieroglyphics, 
set  down  some  five  thousand  years  ago,  consists  hi  a 
lament  over  the  passing  of  the  good  old  days."2 

Why  is  it  that  in  all  ages  men  have  generally  looked 
upon  the  past  as  greater  and  better  than  the  present? 
"There  were  giants  hi  those  days."  Characters  seem 
to  loom  larger  through  the  mists  of  history,  like  objects 
seen  in  a  fog.  Perhaps  it  is  because  they  escape  that 
familiarity  which  breeds  contempt.  Absence  and 
remoteness  give  play  to  the  imagination.  It  is  the 
great  deeds  or  the  great  words  of  distinguished  men 
which  are  remembered.  Such  deeds  and  words  are 
comparatively  rare  hi  any  human  experience.  We  for- 
get that  the  lives  which  we  so  justly  venerate  were 

'The  following  which  appeared  in  the  press  some  years  ago  would 
seem  to  throw  some  light  on  the  question  of  increasing  or  decreasing 
peculations:  "The  average  loss  to  the  public  treasury  during  the 
administration  of  Van  Buren  was  $11.75  on  each  $1,000  received 
and  disbursed;  during  that  of  Polk,  $4.08;  during  that  of  Buchanan, 
$3.81;  during  that  of  Lincoln,  76  cents;  during  that  of  Johnson, 
57  cents;  during  that  of  Grant,  24  cents;  during  that  of  Arthur,  18 
cents;  during  that  of  Hayes,  3  cents;  during  that  of  Cleveland,  2 
cents;  while  that  of  our  late  President  McKinley  shows  not  one  cent's 
loss,  as  far  as  has  been  made  public,  in  the  money  paid  into  the  public 
treasury." 

'Professor  Shaler's  "The  Citizen,"  p.  331. 


56  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

mostly  filled  with  commonplace  like  our  own;  and  we 
unconsciously  clothe  them  with  the  dignity  and  worth 
which  were  not  their  daily  dress  but  their  especial 
ornaments.  Thus  imagination  glorifies  the  past  and 
pictures  it  of  heroic  mold. 

To  most  men  of  moral  earnestness  their  own  times 
have  seemed  degenerate,  and  especially  so  when  ethical 
standards  were  rising.  Thus  every  generation  has 
seen  the  world's  golden  age  in  the  past.  But  the  wise 
man  wrote,  "Say  not  thou,  'What  is  the  cause  that 
the  former  days  were  better  than  these?'  for  thou  dost 
not  inquire  wisely  concerning  this."1  It  is  a  highly 
significant  fact  that  men  are  now  transferring  the 
golden  age  to  the  future. 

This  new  confidence  hi  the  world's  future  springs 
from  new  facts  in  the  world's  experience,  which  facts 
justify  a  new  world-ideal. 

I  cannot  imagine  an  infinitely  good  and  wise  Creator 
who  had  not  a  purpose  worthy  of  His  goodness,  His 
greatness,  and  His  wisdom. 

I  cannot  imagine  any  higher  or  more  benevolent 
purpose  for  this  world  than  bringing  all  its  moral 
creatures  into  perfect  harmony  with  the  perfect  will  of 
this  perfect  being. 

Because  that  will  is  benevolent,  and  because  it  is 
made  known  to  man  in  revelation  and  in  nature,  man's 
highest  good  can  be  realized  only  through  perfect 
obedience  to  the  laws  thus  made  known.  These  laws 
are  not  imposed  on  man  from  without,  but  implanted 
in  his  nature. 

An  ideal  society,  therefore,  whether  local,  or  national,  or 
world-wide,  is  one  which  lives  in  harmony  with  all  the  laws 
of  its  own  being,  thus  actualizing  its  highest  possibilities. 

'Eccle.  7:10. 


A  NEW  WORLD  -  IDEAL  57 

The  complete  realization  of  this  world-ideal  would 
involve  perfect  obedience  to  all  the  laws  of  life,  physi- 
cal, mental,  moral,  spiritual,  and  social,  together  with 
a  comprehensive  knowledge  of  the  laws  necessary  to  the 
mastery  of  the  physical  world. 

If  the  hope  of  even  approximating  such  an  ideal 
seems  visionary,  it  must  be  remembered  how  brief  has 
been  the  period  of  man's  civilized  Me  as  compared  with 
his  probable  future  on  the  earth.  Though  the  human 
race  is  supposed  to  have  existed  between  200,000  and 
300,000  years,  "it  has  been  conscious  of  its  existence," 
says  Professor  Lester  F.  Ward,  "only  about  10,000 
years.  The  most  that  it  has  accomplished  of  any  value 
to  itself  has  been  done  within  2,000  years,  and  its  great 
work  within  200  years.  In  a  word,  relatively  speaking, 
man  has  only  just  begun  to  exist.  The  conditions  of 
existence  on  this  earth  are  now  at  their  optimum. 
Abundance  of  air  and  water,  heat  and  light,  great  vari- 
ety of  surface,  soil,  climate,  mineral  resources  and  all 
the  materials  and  forces  of  nature  ready  to  yield  to  the 
magic  wand  of  science.  There  are  no  indications  that 
these  conditions  will  change  in  an  entire  geologic  epoch. 
These  favourable  conditions  are  certainly  liable  to 
last  as  long  as  the  tertiary  period  just  closed  has  lasted, 
namely,  about  3,000,000  years.  They  may  continue 
12, 000,000. "!  To  us  one  million  years  means  eternity. 
Surely,  as  Tennyson  says: 

"  This  fine  old  world  of  ours  is  but  a  child. 
Still  in  its  go-cart." 

The  two  great  obstacles  to  progress  and  the  two  great 
sources  of  human  misery  in  the  world's  past  have  been 

lBmwn  (Univ.)  Alumni  Monthly  (March,  1907).  Quoted  by 
Professor  Dealey  in  "Sociology,"  pp.  191,  192. 


58  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

ignorance  and  selfishness.  Ignorance  has  made  men 
the  victims  of  fear  and  superstition,  of  want  and  fam- 
ine and  pestilence,  of  heat  and  cold  and  flood,  and  of 
ignoble  content  while  lacking  the  numberless  good 
things  nature  was  waiting  to  bestow.  Selfishness  has 
made  men  the  victims  of  one  another  by  war,  oppres- 
sion, slavery,  murder,  robbery,  theft,  fraud,  outrage, 
revenge,  and  a  thousand  other  wrongs;  and,  at  the  same 
time,  notwithstanding  all  his  wrongs  at  the  hands  of 
others,  it  has  made  every  man  his  own  worst  enemy. 

These  two  great  drags  on  the  progress  of  the  race  are 
now  in  process  of  being  removed  by  the  new  knowl- 
edge and  the  new  altruism.  Let  us  see  how  these  two 
new  facts  in  the  world's  experience  are  related  to  the 
realization  of  this  world-ideal. 

I.      THE   NEW   KNOWLEDGE 

The  new  knowledge  we  call  science.  Until  the  dis- 
covery and  application  of  the  scientific  method,  which 
will  be  the  subject  of  a  later  chapter,  the  schooling  of 
the  race  was  mostly  at  the  hands  of  experience  —  a 
hard  master,  whose  method  is  not  "a  word  and  a  blow," 
but  the  blow  with  no  word  either  of  warning  or  of 
explanation.  The  tuition,  which  has  been  paid  in 
suffering,  has  been  high,  and  the  progress  slow. 

While  such  schooling,  in  the  course  of  a  couple  of 
hundred  thousand  years,  has  afforded  much  valuable 
knowledge  which  has  become  the  common  property  of 
the  race,  it  could  never  teach  the  science  of  life  nor  the 
art  of  living.  These  had  to  wait  for  the  new  knowl- 
edge of  the  nineteenth  century,  whose  elevation  above 
all  previous  knowledge  was  so  vast  and  at  the  same 
time  so  abrupt  that  it  might  almost  be  called  a  mighty 
cataclysm  in  the  intellectual  life  of  the  race. 


A  NEW  WORLD  -  IDEAL  59 

Alfred  Russel  Wallace,  "to  whom  jointly  with  Dar- 
win the  world  is  indebted  for  that  conception  of  evolu- 
tion which  is  the  most  important  scientific  phase  of 
thought  of  the  century,"  asserts  that  the  discoveries, 
inventions,  and  practical  applications  of  science  which 
were  made  during  the  nineteenth  century  both  out- 
weigh and  outnumber  all  that  had  preceded  in  all 
time.  We  are  told  by  Professor  A.  E.  Dolbear  that  at 
the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century  the  following 
individual  sciences  had  no  existence  —  physical  astron- 
omy, physical  geography,  geology,  botany,  chemistry, 
heat,  thermodynamics,  light,  electricity,  paleontology, 
morphology,  biology,  neurology,  psychology,  anthro- 
pology, sociology,  history,  non-Euclidian  geometry. 
Among  others,  he  might  have  added  the  exceedingly 
important  science  of  bacteriology,  which  has  been 
created  within  a  generation.  "These  sciences,"  he 
adds,  "  embody  almost  all  the  knowledge  we  have/' 

When  we  consider  that,  aside  from  spiritual  truth, 
the  greater  part,  and  the  more  important  part,  of  all 
the  world's  knowledge  to-day  is  only  about  one  hundred 
years  old,  how  glorious  is  the  reasonable  expectation 
for  the  long  future.  Much  that  the  future  will  unfold 
will  doubtless  be  as  far  beyond  our  present  conceptions 
as  the  existing  temple  of  science  is  beyond  anything 
that  Lord  Bacon  could  imagine  when,  in  the  "Novum 
Organum,"  he  laboured  upon  its  foundations.  And  the 
marvels  which  in  future  centuries  will  spring  from  the 
application  of  laws  and  forces  whose  existence  is  as  yet 
unsuspected,  we  can  no  more  anticipate  than  Shake- 
speare could  have  anticipated  that  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury would  actualize  his  imagination,  and  even  out- 
nimble  Puck  in  putting  a  girdle  around  the  earth. 

There  are  some  directions  in  which  we  have  nearly 


60  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

reached  the  limit  of  knowledge  and  achievement,  as, 
for  instance,  exploration.  In  1800,  60  per  cent,  of  the 
earth's  surface  was  unexplored;  now  with  the  discovery 
of  the  south  pole  the  last  great  geographical  secret  has 
been  surrendered.  But  generally  speaking  there  is 
every  reason  to  believe  that  the  achievements  of  science 
have  only  begun.  Each  new  step  gained  gives  a  van- 
tage ground  for  the  next.  "To  him  that  hath  shall 
be  given."  The  conditions  of  scientific  investigation 
are  constantly  improving.  Instruments  and  methods 
are  being  carried  to  a  higher  degree  of  perfection.  At 
the  Centennial  Exposition,  in  1876,  the  telephone  was 
only  an  interesting  toy.  Now  it  has  become  a  neces- 
sity of  civilization;  and  in  New  York  during  the  single 
hour  from  11  A.  M.  to  noon  180,000  conversations  are 
had  over  the  wire.  At  the  close  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury the  sending  of  a  "wireless"  a  few  miles  was  a 
triumph.  The  other  day  a  man  in  California  and 
another  in  Japan  exchanged  wireless  messages  across 
the  Pacific ;  which  renders  credible  the  prophecy  made 
a  few  years  ago  that  we  should  soon  talk  freely  across 
the  Atlantic.  "Hello,  Paris!  This  is  New  York. 
Please  give  me  the  Musee  Social!  "  would  make  France 
seem  like  an  adjoining  county. 

Furthermore,  our  vast  and  rapidly  accumulating 
wealth  is  appropriating  increasing  sums  to  scientific 
research.  The  Carnegie  Institution  at  Washington 
has  received  $25,000,000  from  its  benefactor.  In  the 
observatory  which  it  has  established  on  Mount  Wilson 
in  California,  Professor  Hale,  by  entirely  new  processes, 
has  become  a  Columbus  of  the  heavens.  His  first 
test-plate  revealed  16,000  new  worlds,  and  his  second, 
60,000  more,  which  have  never  been  seen  by  men, 
"some  of  them  ten  times  larger  than  our  sun."  There 


A  NEW  WORLD  -  IDEAL  61 

is  being  prepared  for  Professor  Hale  a  new  lens  100 
inches  in  diameter,  which  will  have  three  times  as 
much  power  as  the  strongest  lens  ever  made. 

Such  improved  instrumentalities  are  being  used  by 
ever-increasing  numbers  of  well-equipped  men.  Pro- 
fessor Charles  S.  Minot  says  that  there  are  now  at 
least  10,000  men  of  substantial  ability  carrying  on 
original  scientific  researches. 

What  vast  additions,  then,  to  our  store  of  knowledge 
may  be  expected  from  the  twentieth  century,  and  from 
the  twentieth  century  after  the  twentieth ! 

It  is  easy  to  recognize  the  miracles  of  change  which 
have  been  wrought  by  applied  science  in  communica- 
tion, transportation,  manufactures  and  hi  all  material 
civilization  during  the  past  century.  But  do  we  appre- 
ciate the  fact  that  the  discoveries  of  science  have 
worked  changes  no  less  profound  and  far  more  impor- 
tant in  man  himself? 

1.  Science  is  emancipating  us  from  the  tyranny  of 
the  past,  of  custom,  and  of  authority.  Just  in  propor- 
tion as  one  gams  the  scientific  spirit  does  he  cease  to 
be  controlled  by  prejudice  and  by  preconceived  notions. 
His  opinions  are  not  heirlooms,  nor  have  they  been  im- 
posed on  him  by  authorities,  nor  voted  for  him  by 
majorities.  He  does  not  cling  to  them  because  they 
are  old,  nor  does  he  adopt  them  because  they  are  new. 
He  accepts  them  on  evidence  of  then*  truth  and,  as  long 
as  he  believes  them  to  be  true,  holds  to  them  regardless 
of  consequences. 

Conservatism  is  often  nothing  but  mental  or  moral 
inertia,  and  measures  one's  unwillingness  to  readjust 
his  living  or  his  thinking  to  a  new  fact  or  a  new  idea. 
We  are  told1  that  in  the  year  1818  the  school  board  of 

'See  the  Chicago  Daily  News  for  August  19,  1911. 


62  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

Lancaster,  Ohio,  being  asked  for  the  use  of  the  school- 
house  in  which  to  debate  railroads  and  telegraphs, 
replied  as  follows:  "You  are  welcome  to  the  use  of 
the  schoolhouse  to  debate  all  proper  questions  in,  but 
such  things  as  railroads  and  telegraphs  are  impossi- 
bilities and  rank  infidelity.  There  is  nothing  in  the 
Word  of  God  about  them.  If  God  had  designed  that 
his  intelligent  creatures  should  travel  at  the  frightful 
speed  of  fifteen  miles  an  hour  by  steam  —  he  would  have 
clearly  foretold  it  through  his  holy  prophets.  It  is  a 
device  of  Satan  to  lead  immortal  souls  down  to  hell." 

Such  immobility  of  course  became  impossible  in  the 
midst  of  a  rapidly  changing  environment. 

If  we  should  make  a  study  of  the  science,  art,  litera- 
ture, music,  industry,  politics,  education,  ethics,  and 
theology  of  the  past  century  with  reference  to  deter- 
mining what  was  the  most  distinctive  feature  in  the 
progress  of  each,  we  should  find  one  and  the  same  thing 
characteristic  of  them  all,  namely,  freedom.  This  is  of 
course  a  comment  on  the  emancipation  of  the  human 
mind  which  has  wrought  its  declaration  of  indepen- 
dence into  every  product  of  its  activity.  And  this 
freedom  of  the  mind,  with  its  promise  of  progress,  has 
been  won  for  all  time. 

2.  The  new  knowledge  has  given  to  us  a  new  out- 
look, in  which  old  things  intellectual  have  passed 
away,  and  all  things  have  become  new. 

Chemistry  has  revolutionized  our  conception  of  the 
universe  from  beginning  to  end.  Geology  has  revolu- 
tionized our  conception  of  the  earth  and  of  its  prepara- 
tion for  life.  Biology  has  revolutionized  our  conception 
of  the  development  of  life,  and  of  the  creation  of  man. 
The  discovery  of  evolution  has  given  to  us  a  nobler  con- 
ception of  man,  a  deeper  appreciation  of  the  dignity  and 


A  NEW  WORLD  -  IDEAL  63 

worth  of  the  human  body  by  showing  how  incalculable 
was  its  cost,  has  revealed  unhoped  for  possibilities  of 
the  race,  and  has  shown  how  on  broad  lines  these  pos- 
sibilities may  be  realized.  The  comparative  study  of 
languages,  laws,  customs,  and  institutions  has  placed 
in  our  hand  the  true  key  to  history,  and  has  compelled 
its  rewriting.  The  race  without  a  history  would  be 
like  a  man  without  a  memory.  It  would  not  be  pos- 
sible to  profit  by  the  successes  and  failures  of  the  past. 
Wisdom,  which  is  distilled  from  experience,  would  be 
impossible.  We  know  much  more  of  the  past  than  our 
fathers  could,  and  may,  therefore,  profit  by  the  laws  of 
social  evolution  as  they  could  not. 

With  an  increasing  knowledge  of  the  evolution  of 
society  has  come  a  revolutionary  change  in  ethics. 
It  is  asserted,  and  I  think  justly,  that  there  was  a 
greater  ethical  advance  during  the  nineteenth  century 
than  during  the  Christian  era  preceding.  Not  only  was 
there  a  development  of  ethical  principles,  and  an  ex- 
tension of  the  field  of  applied  ethics,  but  there  took 
place  a  profoundly  significant  change  in  emphasis,  from 
the  individualistic  insistence  on  rights  to  the  social 
insistence  on  duties,  indicating  that  ethics  had  been 
newly  vitalized. 

With  the  new  principles  of  historic  interpretation  has 
come  a  new  knowledge  of  the  times  in  which  the  He- 
brew and  Christian  Scriptures  were  written;  and  a  new 
light  has  been  thrown  upon  then-  meaning,  resulting  in 
a  new  interpretation  of  Christianity  .  .  .  new  only 
because  it  is  so  old  that  it  had  been  forgotten  for  many 
centuries. l 


'The  re-discovery  of  the  Christianity  of  Christ  and  its  perfect 
adaptation  to  the  needs  of  the  new  civilization  will  be  discussed  in 
Parts  III,  IV,  and  VI. 


64  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

The  new  knowledge  of  creation  has  very  naturally 
given  to  us  a  new  conception  of  the  Creator,  and  of  his 
relations  to  his  works.  Prior  to  this  new  knowledge 
men  conceived  of  God  as  the  great  First  Cause,  operat- 
ing upon  matter  from  without  as  we  do;  hence  what  is 
known  as  the  carpenter  theory  of  creation,  and  the 
governmental  theory  of  God's  relations  to  his  creatures. 
Men  are  now  coming  to  think  of  him  as  immanent  in 
the  universe  though  distinct  from  it  —  the  "Infinite 
and  Eternal  Energy  from  which  all  things  proceed." 
He  now  reveals  himself  through  the  operation  of  nat- 
ural laws,  which  are  expressions  of  his  will,  and  not  by 
the  suspension  nor  the  infraction  of  those  laws.  We 
think  of  his  relations  to  us  as  vital  rather  than  legal, 
and  believe  that  they  are  better  expressed  by  the  word 
Father  than  by  the  word  Governor,  not  forgetting  that 
fatherhood  implies  authority  as  well  as  love. 

These  changes  which  have  taken  place  in  theology, 
in  ethics,  and  in  all  the  abstract  sciences,  are  changes 
in  man  himself.  There  has  been,  of  course,  no  change 
in  eternal  truths,  but  in  our  conception  and  interpre- 
tation of  these  truths.  The  change  has  been  in  us. 
Surely 

*'....    Through  the  ages 
One  increasing  purpose  runs, 
And  the  thoughts  of  men  are  widened 
With  the  process  of  the  suns." 

With  such  radical  changes  in  our  world  of  thought, 
with  new  conceptions  of  God  and  of  the  universe,  it  is 
not  strange  that  we  are  gaming  a  new  conception  of 
human  life,  of  its  meaning  and  of  its  possibilities. 

3.  Science  has  placed  a  new  emphasis  on  the  future. 
Men  could  not  gain  even  a  rudimentary  knowledge  of 
natural  science  without  discovering  that  this  is  not  a 


A   NEW  WORLD  -  IDEAL  65 

finished  world,  but  one  in  process  of  becoming.  Noth- 
ing bears  the  stamp  of  finality.  Nature  in  all  her  on- 
going looks  toward  the  future.  When  "the  earth  was 
without  form  and  void;  and  darkness  was  upon  the 
face  of  the  deep,"  it  was  being  prepared  for  the  lower 
forms  of  life;  and  when  it  was  fitted  for  the  higher  forms 
they  appeared.  Evolution  looks  always  toward  the 
future,  for  which  the  present  is  ever  making  preparation. 

So  far  as  science  gives  us  a  knowledge  of  exact  laws 
it  confers  on  us  the  gift  of  prophecy.  As  Comte  put  it, 
"All  science  has  prevision  for  its  aim."  The  astrono- 
mer calculates  eclipses  long  in  advance,  while  the  chem- 
ist, physicist,  and  biologist  are  all  able  not  only  to  fore- 
see, but,  within  limits,  to  control  the  future.  There  is 
good  promise  that  social  science  will  in  due  time  enable 
us  in  large  measure  to  shape  the  future  of  the  race. 

4.  The  new  knowledge  has  given  to  us  the  begin- 
nings of  Eugenics,  which  Sir  Francis  Galton,  its  founder, 
defines  as  follows : "  Eugenics  is  the  study  of  the  agencies 
under  social  control,  that  may  improve  or  impair  the 
racial  qualities  of  future  generations,  either  physically 
or  mentally." 

The  wonderful  results  which  have  been  achieved 
in  breeding  plants  and  animals  more  than  suggest  the 
possibility  of  improving  the  human  stock  by  observing 
the  same  vital  laws.  WTieat  has  been  "made  to  order" 
which  fulfilled  all  of  the  several  "details  and  specifi- 
cations" required.  We  shall  see  when  we  devote  a 
chapter  to  this  subject  that  "the  fundamental  proc- 
esses of  heredity  are  the  same  in  all  organisms,"1 
whether  vegetable,  animal,  or  human.  Heredity  and 
variability  are  known  factors  or  forces  which  operate 
not  haphazard  but  under  vital  laws.  We  already  have 

lKellicott's  "The  Social  Direction  of  Human  Evolution,"  p.  212. 


66  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

some  knowledge  of  these  laws,  and  a  corresponding 
control  of  them.  If  increasing  knowledge  gives  us 
increasing  control,  as  we  have  a  right  to  expect,  we 
shall  have,  in  due  time,  "the  science  of  being  well 
born."  We  already  know  enough  to  give  the  next 
generation  a  better  start  in  life  than  its  parents  had 
provided  that  knowledge  were  generally  used. 

The  knowledge  just  referred  to  together  with  the 
sterilization  of  the  unfit,  on  which  happily  several  of 
our  states  have  already  legislated,  furnishes  a  reason- 
able ground  of  hope  that  as  the  law  of  natural  selection 
ceases  to  apply  to  man,  and  the  race  is  made  respon- 
sible for  its  own  improvement,  it  will  not  lack  the  means 
of  meeting  that  responsibility  successfully. 

5.  Again,  science  is  not  only  acquainting  us  with  the 
laws  of  heredity  but  also  with  the  influence  of  environ- 
ment, which  it  is  placing  increasingly  under  our  control. 

A  knowledge  of  the  laws  of  life,  individual  and  social, 
and  of  the  influences  of  environment  gives  us  all  neces- 
sary data  for  the  true  art  of  living.  The  applied  sciences 
together  with  unprecedented  wealth  give  us  a  control 
of  environment  never  dreamed  of  prior  to  the  new 
knowledge.  We  are  now  able  by  transforming  the 
conditions  of  life  to  transform  life  itself;  that  is,  we 
modify  our  environment,  and  our  changed  environ- 
ment by  reacting  modifies  us. 

Many  millions  are  now  eating  such  food,  living  in 
such  houses,  working  under  such  conditions  and  with 
such  wages  that  it  is  impossible  for  them  to  live  normal 
lives,  and  disease  and  degradation  are  inevitable. 
But  all  these  conditions  are  remediable;  and  sociology 
gives  us  good  courage  to  expect  that  the  curse  of  pov- 
erty will  be  removed. 

In  this  connection  it  is  possible  only  to  allude  to  the 


A  NEW  WORLD  -  IDEAL  67 

change  which  a  knowledge  of  heredity  and  the  control 
of  environment  are  capable  of  working  in  humanity. 
A  chapter  will  be  devoted  to  each  of  them  as  principles, 
the  application  of  which  will  enable  us  to  solve  some  of 
the  problems  of  the  new  civilization. 

6.  Nowhere  does  the  new  knowledge  shine  with  such 
beneficent  light  and  with  such  glad  promise  for  the 
future  as  hi  the  new  preventive  medicine,  and  in  the 
new  aseptic  and  antiseptic  surgery. 

To  few  men  is  humanity  so  deeply  indebted  as  to  the 
eminent  chemist,  Louis  Pasteur,  to  whose  investiga- 
tions we  owe  the  most  marvellous  progress  in  curative 
and  preventive  medicine  ever  recorded. 

More  than  two  centuries  ago  the  minute  organisms, 
called  bacteria,  were  known  to  exist.  So  infinitestimal 
are  they  that  "1,500  of  them  laid  end  to  end  would 
barely  reach  across  the  head  of  a  pin."  So  tremendous 
is  their  rate  of  multiplication  that  it  has  been  esti- 
mated that  a  single  germ,  under  favourable  conditions, 
may  in  two  days  produce  nearly  200  times  as  many 
bacteria  as  there  are  people  on  the  globe. 

It  was  only  about  a  generation  ago  that  Pasteur's 
experiments  demonstrated  the  soundness  of  the  germ 
theory  of  disease.  With  a  knowledge  of  the  cause  of 
many  of  the  most  terrible  diseases  soon  came  the  means 
of  cure  and  of  prevention. 

In  order  to  appreciate  hi  some  measure  the  incal- 
culable results  of  this  revolution  in  medicine  it  is 
necessary  to  glance  at  the  ravages  of  pestilences  before 
which  humanity  has  been  well  nigh  helpless  until 
recently. 

The  bubonic  plague  has  repeatedly  scourged  the 
earth  since  the  time  of  Trajan.  In  543  A.  D.  it  carried 
off  10,000  persons  hi  Constantinople  in  a  single  day. 


68  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

It  is  believed  to  have  been  the  black  death  of  the  four- 
teenth century,  which  at  its  first  visitation  in  that  cen- 
tury is  estimated  to  have  swept  away  from  two  thirds 
to  three  fourths  of  the  population  in  various  parts  of 
Europe,  and  even  a  larger  proportion  in  England.  It 
appeared  in  each  succeeding  century,  repeatedly  in  the 
eighteenth,  and  with  less  frequency  and  virulence  in 
the  nineteenth.  Breaking  out  in  India  in  the  latter 
part  of  that  century,  it  has,  in  fourteen  years,  num- 
bered between  eight  and  nine  million  people  among  its 
victims  in  that  unhappy  country. 

Science  has  now  discovered  the  cause  of  the  bubonic 
plague,  its  method  of  propagation,  and  the  means  by 
which  its  spread  is  prevented. 

A  hundred  years  ago  smallpox  was  one  of  the  most 
hideous  and  fatal  diseases.  At  that  time,  we  are  told, 
one  tenth  of  all  the  people  on  the  globe  perished,  and 
nearly  twice  as  many  were  permanently  disfigured,  by 
its  ravages.  It  is  estimated  that  during  the  century 
preceding  the  introduction  of  vaccination  50,000,000 
people  died  of  smallpox  in  Europe  alone. 

Now  where  vaccination  is  compulsory,  as  in  Prussia, 
smallpox  is  practically  eliminated. 

Yellow  fever  has  made  many  cities  of  the  tropics 
veritable  plague  spots.  Ships  have  sailed  into  the 
harbour  of  Santos,  Brazil,  to  rot  there  because  every 
man  on  board  was  swept  away  by  the  pestilence. 
Though  the  home  of  this  scourge  is  in  the  tropics,  it  has 
visited  the  United  States  more  than  one  hundred  times 
since  1702.  And  between  1793  and  1900  there  were  no 
less  than  500,000  cases  of  yellow  fever  in  this  country. 
In  Memphis,  in  1878,  when  the  city  had  a  population  of 
19,500,  there  were  17,600  persons  stricken  with  the  fever, 
of  whom  6,000  died.  When  the  French  were  at  work 


A  NEW  WORLD  -  IDEAL  69 

on  the  Panama  Canal,  this  plague  exacted  a  terrible 
death  toll.  In  1910,  Colonel  Gorgas,  U.  S.  A.,  whose 
brilliant  work  of  sanitation  has  given  to  the  Canal 
Zone  a  lower  death  rate  than  that  of  the  United  States, 
pointing  to  one  of  the  hospital  buildings,  remarked  to 
the  writer,  "In  that  house  1,200  Frenchmen  died  of 
yellow  fever." 

But  the  horror  of  this  pestilence  passed  with  the  nine- 
teenth century,  and  by  means  of  scientific  sanitation  it 
has  been  entirely  overcome  hi  the  Canal  Zone.  Havana 
had  never  once  been  free  from  it  for  more  than  one 
hundred  years;  but  hi  1900  the  true  explanation  was 
fully  established,  and  under  the  preventive  measures 
adopted  by  Colonel  Gorgas  there  was  not  a  single 
death  from  yellow  fever  in  1902. 

One  hardly  knows  which  to  admire  most,  the  rare 
acumen  which  divined  the  strange  secret  of  the  plague 
or  the  splendid  heroism  and  martyrdom  which  demon- 
strated the  theory. 

When  we  are  more  civilized  and  more  Christianized 
we  shall  erect  monuments  to  men  who  have  saved  life 
rather  than  to  those  who  have  destroyed  it.  Doctor 
Lazear  was  one  of  the  martyrs  who  yielded  to  this 
yellow  death  in  order  that  humanity  might  gain  the 
victory  over  it.  In  the  fitting  words  of  Doctor  Eliot, 
President  Emeritus  of  Harvard,  engraved  on  a  memorial 
tablet  in  the  Johns  Hopkins  Hospital,  "With  more 
than  the  courage  and  the  devotion  of  the  soldier,  he 
risked  and  lost  his  life  to  show  how  a  fearful  pestilence 
is  communicated  and  how  its  ravages  may  be  pre- 
vented." 

As  for  typhoid  fever,  we  are  told  that  it  has 
passed  beyond  the  catalogue  of  diseases,  and  become 
a  crime. 


70  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

There  is  a  long  list  of  preventable  infectious  diseases l 
whose  origin  is  now  known,  and  in  stamping  out  which 
more  or  less  progress  has  been  made.  The  antitoxin 
treatment  of  diphtheria  has  wrought  wonders,  saving 
many  tens  of  thousands  of  lives  yearly.  Tuberculosis 
is  being  brought  under  control,  and  many  are  alive  to- 
day who  will  undoubtedly  live  to  see  the  great  white 
plague  only  a  memory.  Pasteur's  declaration  that 
"  It  is  within  the  power  of  man  to  rid  himself  of  every 
parasitic  disease"  has  become  the  motto  of  the  new 
preventive  medicine.  It  should  be  added  that  there 
are  other  diseases  which,  like  scurvy,  though  not  in- 
fectious, are  now  preventable. 

Indeed,  when  we  have  learned  how  to  breathe,  and 
how  to  eat,  and  how  to  exercise  —  in  a  word,  how  to 
live — our  good  doctors,  to  whom  the  world  owes  so 
much,  will,  most  of  them,  have  lost  their  occupation. 

The  revolution  in  surgery,  during  the  last  half  cen- 
tury, has  been  even  more  complete  than  thatin  medicine. 
The  greater  part  of  this  progress  has  been  accomplished 
within  a  generation,  so  that  a  well-known  surgical  writer 
declares  that  there  has  been  more  advance  in  medicine 
and  surgery  in  the  past  thirty  years  than  had  been 
achieved  in  the  preceding  thirty  centuries. 

For  this  new  surgery,  which  is  working  such  wonders 
of  healing,  the  world  is  chiefly  indebted  to  Joseph  Lister, 
who  demonstrated  that  the  infections  which  so  com- 
monly followed  surgical  operations  and  so  often  resulted 
hi  death  were  caused  by  microbes,  from  which  the  new 
surgery  successfully  protects  the  patient. 

Formerly  surgeons  invaded  the  abdomen  only  in 

'This  list  includes  typhoid  fever,  cholera,  tuberculosis,  dysentery, 
pneumonia,  diphtheria,  meningitis,  bubonic  plague,  syphilis,  gonor- 
rhoea, leprosy,  tetanus,  anthrax,  influenza,  malaria,  blood-poisoning, 
and  the  sleeping  sickness. 


A  NEW  WORLD  -IDEAL  71 

desperate  cases.  Now  in  operations  for  certain 
abdominal  tumours  the  death  rate  has  been  reduced 
from  75  per  cent,  to  less  than  5  per  cent.;  and  the 
eminent  surgeon,  Dr.  W.  W.  Keen,  speaks  of  this  region 
as  "almost  the  surgeons'  playground."  The  success- 
ful transfusion  of  blood  from  a  healthy  person  to  a 
sick  one,  removing  the  entire  stomach  without  destroy- 
ing the  functions  performed  by  it,  sewing  together 
severed  nerves,  or  using  a  part  of  an  uninjured  nerve 
to  splice  an  injured  one,  and  delicate  operations  on 
the  brain  and  heart,  never  dreamed  of  until  recent 
years,  are  among  the  miracles  of  the  new  surgery.  Not 
a  few  cases  are  on  record  in  which  wounds  of  the  heart 
have  been  operated  upon  successfully. 

It  has  been  demonstrated  that  it  is  practicable  to 
transplant  from  one  animal  to  another  many  organs 
and  portions  of  organs,  including  kidneys,  limbs,  sec- 
tions of  arteries  and  bones,  and  to  make  them  perform 
their  various  functions  for  their  new  owners  with  entire 
success;  which  fact  suggests  the  possibility  of  an  im- 
portant human  application. 

As  every  branch  of  the  surgical  art  is  making  rapid 
progress  there  is  every  reason  to  expect  many  new  and 
unimagined  triumphs  of  skill  for  the  relief  of  human 
suffering. 

A  new  anaesthetic  has  just  been  found  by  a  Boston 
surgeon  which  overcomes  the  disadvantages  of  ether, 
and  can  be  used,  we  are  told,  without  the  slightest 
danger  or  discomfort. 

7.  Perhaps  no  one  thing  would  do  more  for  the  race 
than  largely  increasing  its  stock  of  vitality.  Whether 
we  are  well  or  sick,  hopeful  or  despondent,  whether  our 
children  are  vigorous  or  puny,  whether  our  work  is  a 
daily  delight  or  a  perpetual  drag,  whether  our  nerves 


72  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

tingle  with  the  joy  of  living  or  nothing  seems  worth 
while  and  nothingness  would  be  a  boon,  may  all  de- 
pend on  having  just  a  little  more  vitality  than  is  de- 
manded for  the  day's  duties  or  just  a  little  less.  "  I  am 
come  that  they  might  have  life  and  that  they  might 
have  it  more  abundantly."  Not  more  lives,  but  more 
life,  physical,  intellectual,  and  spiritual,  is  what  the 
race  needs.  If  all  men  could  live  "more  abundantly," 
a  multitude  of  ills,  both  seeming  and  real,  would  dis- 
appear like  nightmares  and  bats  before  the  morning 
sun. 

"Vital  energy  may  be  expended  by  the  muscles,  the 
nerves,  or  the  brain  —  that  is,  in  muscular  action,  in 
feeling,  or  in  thinking — and  of  course  strength  expended 
in  any  one  of  these  three  directions  is  not  available  for 
use  in  either  of  the  other  two."1  Muscular  toil,  pro- 
longed to  exhaustion,  leaves  little  strength  for  brain 
and  nerves;  hence  the  perpetuation  of  a  peasant  class, 
which  with  little  refinement  of  thought  and  feeling  is 
unable  to  develop  culture  because  it  must  needs  carry 
an  upper  class  on  its  shoulders.  There  was  little  cult- 
ural civilization  in  the  world  until  slavery  made  leisure 
possible.  Thanks  to  the  new  knowledge,  our  slaves 
are  now  iron  and  steel  instead  of  flesh  and  blood,  and 
it  has  become  possible  for  the  race  to  husband  its  vital 
energy  for  the  development  of  the  finer  sensibilities  and 
of  the  power  of  thought,  and  for  the  enrichment  of  life 
in  a  thousand  ways. 

It  is  true  that  in  many  occupations  hours  are  still 
excessive  and  toil  is  exhausting,  but  hours  are  being 
shortened,  and  the  progress  of  invention  makes  greater 
demands  on  the  workman's  brains  and  less  on  his 
muscles.  The  fact  that  steam  and  electricity  are  being 

'The  author's  "The  Times  and  Young  Men,"  pp.  197-199. 


A  NEW  WORLD  -  IDEAL  73 

substituted  for  muscular  energy  gives  assurance  of  an 
unequalled  advance  in  cultural  civilization  and  in  the 
joy  of  living  when  the  multitude,  released  from  the 
necessity  of  spending  all  their  vital  force  in  the  struggle 
to  live,  shall  have  learned  to  use  it  for  the  noblest  ends. 
Culture  will  then  cease  to  be  the  peculiar  prerogative 
of  the  few  and  become  the  common  heritage  of  the 
many. 

The  refinement  of  the  multitude  cannot  seem  more 
chimerical  to  the  cultivated  few  to-day  than  the  educa- 
tion of  the  many  seemed  to  the  literate  few  when  it  was 
first  proposed. 

Charles  Dickens,  when  visiting  America,  wrote  to  his 
friends  in  England  that  a  man  with  seven  heads  would 
attract  less  attention  in  Boston  than  a  man  who  could 
not  read  and  write.  Illiteracy  has  now  been  reduced 
to  so  narrow  limits  in  many  lands  that  we  confidently 
look  for  its  extinction,  and  dare  to  believe  in  a  good  day 
coming  when  Dickens's  hydra-headed  monster  would 
be  ignored  anywhere  in  the  presence  of  an  illiterate 
man. 

The  new  knowledge  is  as  yet  very  new,  and,  com- 
paratively speaking,  it  is  known  to  few.  But  it  has 
already  given  us  power  which  transcends  the  highest 
flights  of  men's  imagination  a  hundred  years  ago;  it  has 
created  a  new  civilization;  it  has  given  to  the  world  a 
new  outlook,  and  has  revealed  undreamed  of  possi- 
bilities. Who  will  be  so  rash  as  to  limit  its  revelations 
in  the  long  future? 

It  is  the  province  of  science  to  discover  to  us  natural 
laws  by  which  we  subdue  nature  to  the  uses  of  human 
welfare,  and  to  reveal  the  laws  of  life,  both  individual 
and  social,  by  the  knowledge  of  which  society  may  live 
in  harmony  with  the  laws  of  its  own  being,  thus  actual- 


74  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

izing  its  highest  possibilities,  and  realizing  our  social 
ideal. 

II.      THE   NEW   ALTRUISM 

"Thou  shalt  starve  ere  I  want"  was  the  motto  of  an 
ancient  Scottish  family.  That  was  in  the  good  old 
days  when  greed  could  be  frank  and  free,  when  the 
might  of  the  broad  claymore  made  right,  when  the 
claims  of  a  clansman  were  sacred  to  be  sure,  but,  once 
across  the  border,  the  moral  law  ceased  to  be  binding. 
Modern  competition  has  the  same  working  motto,  but, 
like  the  English  constitution,  it  is  unwritten.  Present- 
day  greed  is  usually  sufficiently  well  advised  to  keep 
on  the  safe  side  of  the  law,  but  relegates  all  moral  re- 
straints to  No  Man's  Land. 

"Man  to  man  is  a  wolf."  That  was  Plautus's  broad 
comment  on  human  nature  2,000  years  ago.  Even  if 
he  has  not  so  wide  a  range  now  as  formerly,  the  wolf 
of  selfishness  still  ravens  in  every  community.  "Every 
man  for  himself"  is  the  working  motto  of  an  individ- 
ualistic civilization.  Between  buyer  and  seller  selfish- 
ness is  assumed  as  a  matter  of  course.  Business  as 
conducted,  not  for  the  service  of  society  but  for  pri- 
vate gam,  is  a  school  of  selfishness  which  is  in  session 
six  days  in  the  week  and  takes  no  vacations. 

Yes,  human  nature  is  selfish,  but  I  reject  utterly  that 
aphorism  of  satisfied  selfishness.  "You  can't  change 
human  nature."  That  is  precisely  what  can  be  done, 
and  is  being  done.  Professor  Huxley,  after  remarking, 
"I  see  no  limit  to  the  extent  to  which  intelligence  and 
will  .  .  .  may  modify  the  conditions  of  existence," 
adds,  "And  much  may  be  done  to  change  the  nature  of 
man  himself.  The  intelligence  which  has  converted 
the  brother  of  the  wolf  into  the  faithful  guardian  of  the 


A  NEW  WORLD  -IDEAL  75 

flock  ought  to  be  able  to  do  something  toward  curb- 
ing the  instincts  of  savagery  in  civilized  man."1  The 
nature  which  belonged  to  our  prehuman  ancestors 
changed  profoundly  when  man  became  man;  and 
human  nature  has  slowly  changed  ever  since.  Only  a 
few  generations  ago  our  ancestors,  on  gaming  a  victory 
over  their  enemies,  slew  the  women  and  children. 
And  only  a  few  generations  further  back,  they  found 
sport  in  tossing  babies  into  the  air  and  catching  them 
on  the  points  of  spears.  Our  abhorrence  of  the  back- 
ward and  unspeakable  Turk  for  doing  precisely  what 
our  own  forefathers  once  did  shows  how  much  Anglo- 
Saxon  human  nature  has  changed  in  a  few  centuries. 

And  human  nature  is  going  to  keep  on  changing. 
Our  descendants  will  look  back  on  many  of  the  abuses 
of  to-day,  which  spring  from  our  selfishness,  with  the 
same  astonished  horror  with  which  we  listen  to  tales  of 
mediaeval  torture. 

Such  changes  indicate  the  progress  of  civilization 
and  the  elevation  of  ethical  standards.  But  there  is 
another  and  much  more  radical  transformation  which 
is  in  perfect  harmony  with  nature's  system.  Matter 
rising  from  the  mineral  kingdom  to  the  vegetable  be- 
comes subject  to  new  laws,  is  beautified,  and  —  won- 
derful change  —  is  born  into  life.  Again,  matter 
rises  into  the  animal  kingdom,  again  becomes  subject 
to  new  laws,  is  again  glorified,  and  —  another  marvel  — 
matter  begins  to  feel,  enters  into  new  possibilities,  is 
born  into  a  higher  life.  There  is  another  and  still  more 
marvellous  advance.  The  brute  becomes  subject  to 
moral  law,  and  beauty  of  body  and  power  of  thought 
are  multiplied  a  thousandfold.  He  ceases  to  be  brute 
and  man  is  born.  But  the  evolution  and  elevation  need 

*"  Evolution  and  Ethics,"  p.  85. 


76  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

not  end  here.  Man  by  yielding  himself  to  other  and 
still  higher  laws,  the  social  laws  of  love,  service,  and 
sacrifice,  is  born  again  —  born  into  the  kingdom  of 
heaven,  and  the  glory  of  God  shines  upon  his  head. 

Selfishness  can  never  be  completely  dethroned  in  the 
individual,  or  in  society  until  love  has  been  completely 
enthroned.  It  is  at  this  point  that  the  religious  ele- 
ment enters  in  as  essential  to  the  realization  of  our 
social  ideal.  We  can  here  only  recognize  it,  however, 
as  several  chapters  will  be  devoted  to  it  in  Part  III. 

One  reason,  and  I  think  the  principal  reason,  why 
more  progress  has  not  been  made  in  overcoming  selfish- 
ness is  because  it  has  not  been  recognized  as  the  great 
taproot  of  all  moral  evil.  It  has  been  looked  upon  as 
only  one  of  many  branches  of  the  tree,  perhaps  a  mere 
twig.  Doubtless  in  most  well-regulated  families  un- 
selfishness is  placed  about  on  a  par  with  cleanliness. 
Indeed,  there  is  far  more  effort  to  make  faces  and  hands 
clean  than  to  make  character  unselfish.  Where  is 
selfishness  recognized  and  abhorred  as  the  supreme 
social  ill,  and  the  mother  of  1,000  others,  more  destruc- 
tive of  human  happiness  and  well  being  than  famine 
and  plague  combined,  for  there  is  never  a  day  in  all 
the  year  when  this  moral  pestilence  is  not  at  work  in 
all  the  world? 

It  has  already  been  said  that  ignorance  and  selfish- 
ness have  been  the  two  great  obstacles  to  human  prog- 
ress, and  the  two  great  causes  of  human  wretchedness. 
Millions  of  people  are  at  work  helping  to  remove  the 
world's  ignorance.  The  school,  the  college,  the  uni- 
verity,  the  press,  are  all  more  or  less  effectively  aiming 
at  this  end;  but  how  many  people  are  there  in  the  world, 
and  how  many  institutions  are  there,  whose  business 
it  is  to  overcome  human  selfishness?  This  country 


A  NEW  WORLD  -  IDEAL  77 

spends  upward  of  $400,000,000  a  year  on  its  public 
schools  alone,  the  avowed  object  of  which  is  to  make 
the  people  intelligent.  I  have  yet  to  hear  of  the  state 
or  the  municipality  that  has  appropriated  400  cents  for 
the  avowed  purpose  of  making  the  people  unselfish. 

Our  individualistic  civilization  with  its  competitive 
organization  of  industry  assumed  selfishness  not  only  as 
a  universal  fact  in  business,  but  as  a  universal  necessity, 
which  hi  all  business  relations  justifies  it,  thus  bewild- 
ering the  judgment  and  benumbing  the  conscience;  for 
that  which  is  right  anywhere  cannot  be  wrong  in  itself. 

Laissez  faire  is  the  old  political  economy's  euphem- 
ism for  Cain's  famous,  or  rather  infamous,  answer, 
"Am  I  my  brother's  keeper?"  But  with  the  coming 
of  the  new  social  civilization,  hi  which  reciprocal  re- 
lations are  ever  growing  more  intimate  and  more  com- 
plex, this  "let  alone"  policy  became  as  really  impossible 
between  the  various  organs  and  members  of  human 
society  as  between  the  various  organs  and  members  of 
a  human  body. 

In  this  new  and  less  unfavourable  environment 
emerges  the  new  altruism. 

This  new  spirit  is  so  obvious  that  it  is  almost  super- 
fluous to  cite  illustrations.  In  answer  to  it  govern- 
ments are  wrestling  with  social  problems.  Under  its 
influence  employers  are  discovering  that  they  owe  their 
employees  something  more  than  wages.  We  see  an 
expression  of  it  in  social  settlements,  and  in  number- 
less philanthropic  organizations.  The  single  city  of 
Philadelphia  has  2,376  separate  agencies  engaged  in 
benevolent  work,  more  than  half  of  which  aim  solely 
at  the  relief  of  physical  suffering.  In  New  York 
(including  only  Manhattan  and  the  Bronx)  simply  to 
catalogue  similar  institutions,  with  a  few  descriptive 


78  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

lines,  requires  403  pages  in  a  12-mo.  volume  —  an 
increase  of  102  pages  in  ten  years.  For  the  purpose  of 
giving  intelligent  direction  to  these  new  altruistic 
efforts  several  schools  of  philanthropy  have  been  opened 
and  in  them  hundreds  of  young  men  and  women  are 
being  trained  for  these  new  professions.  It  is  only  a 
few  years  since  the  first  chair  of  sociology  was  estab- 
lished hi  one  of  our  universities;  now  such  chairs  are  a 
matter  of  course.  Professor  Bailey  of  Yale  University, 
after  taking  a  party  of  his  students,  seventy-five  in 
number,  on  their  annual  survey  of  social  conditions  and 
social  work  in  New  York,  remarked:  "You  will  find 
that  25  per  cent,  of  these  young  men  here  with  me  will 
go  back  to  their  own  cities  after  graduation  and  plunge 
with  then*  whole  hearts  into  just  such  work  as  they  see 
attempted  here.  ...  I  think  the  world  is  on  the 
verge  of  a  splendid  new  era  of  social  spirit,  and  that  the 
colleges  do  well  to  make  their  courses  tend  hi  that  di- 
rection, away  from  the  old-time  academic  work  that  was 
nothing  if  not  aloof  from  life  and  its  pressing  problems." 
Dr.  Woodrow  Wilson,  when  inducted  into  the  presi- 
dency of  Princeton  University,  said:  "Here  hi  America, 
for  every  man  touched  with  nobility,  for  every  man 
touched  with  the  spirit  of  our  institutions,  social  service 
is  the  high  law  of  duty,  and  every  American  university 
must  square  its  standards  by  that  law  or  lack  its  na- 
tional title."  Doctor  Butler,  when  inaugurated  presi- 
dent of  Columbia  University,  said:  "The  university 
is  bound  by  its  very  nature  to  the  service  of  others," 
and  the  keynote  of  President  James's  inaugural  address 
at  the  University  of  Illinois  was  that  "the  object  of 
all  education  is  to  fit  men  for  service."  It  should  be 
observed  hi  this  connection  that  the  ideas  and  spirit  of 
educated  young  men  and  women  are  prophetic,  be- 


A  NEW  WORLD  -  IDEAL  79 

cause  they  become  the  teachers  of  the  next  generation. 
Moreover,  the  press,  which  is  the  university  of  all  the 
people,  is  giving  the  same  teaching;  and  of  making 
many  books,  magazines,  and  papers  devoted  to  social 
interests  there  is  no  end.  The  churches  also  are  be- 
ginning to  see  that  they  have  a  mission  to  society  as 
well  as  to  the  individual. l 

Only  those  can  appreciate  the  increase  of  the  altruis- 
tic spirit  during  the  past  quarter  of  a  century  who  can 
compare  that  period  with  the  preceding  twenty-five 
years.  There  has  been  a  most  encouraging  change,  but 
it  is  only  a  good  beginning.  There  is  still  quite  enough 
selfishness  in  the  world  to  "go  'round";  we  are  all  a 
little  selfish  —  except  those  of  us  who  are  a  good  deal 
so. 

There  is  abundant  reason  to  believe  that  progress 
toward  the  realization  of  a  high  social  ideal  for  the 
world  is  to  be  increasingly  rapid  in  the  future. 

Satisfaction  and  despair  alike  paralyze  effort.  Our 
ideals  seem  attainable  lest  we  despair,  and  like  the 
horizon  they  move  on  as  we  approach  lest  we  be  satis- 
fied. The  social  progress  of  the  world  in  the  past  has 
been  much  impeded  by  the  satisfaction  of  the  privileged 
class,  who  were  more  than  content  to  have  the  existing 
social  system  continue  undisturbed,  and  by  the  hope- 
lessness of  the  unprivileged,  who  have  much  of  the 
time  despaired  of  anything  better.  But  there  is  now 
spreading  through  all  classes  a  noble  discontent,  which 
is  intelligent  and  unselfish,  which  knows  that  condi- 
tions can  be  improved  and  purposes  that  they  shall 
be. 


'For  other  phases  of  the  altruistic  spirit  and  its  causes  see  the 
author's  "Our  Country,"  pp.  121-124,  also  his  "Expansion,"  pp. 
227-230. 


80  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

"Could'st  thou  in  vision  see 

Thyself  the  man  God  meant, 
Thou  never  more  would'st  be 
The  man  thou  art,  content." 

This  is  as  true  of  society  as  of  the  individual.  Many 
good  people  have  been  inactive  in  the  presence  of 
recognized  evils  because  they  imagined  these  evils  were 
permanent  —  a  necessary  part  of  a  providential  scheme 
of  things.  This  world  was  intended  to  be  a  "vale  of 
tears";  why  struggle  against  the  inevitable?  This  view 
has  enabled  many  a  man  who  was  guilty  of  moral  lazi- 
ness or  of  moral  cowardice  to  lay  the  flattering  unction 
to  his  soul  that  he  was  submissive  to  the  divine  will. 
In  the  past,  few  people  have  had  a  worthy  social  ideal 
for  then*  community,  then*  country,  or  for  the  world. 

Now,  however,  in  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  come  hi 
the  earth,  some  of  us  believe  that  we  see  a  vision  of 
precisely  the  society  "God  meant";  and  once  having 
seen  it,  we  can  never  again  be  content  with  society  as  it 
is.  This  is  the  stimulus  of  a  new  and  glorious  ideal. 
Moreover,  there  is  the  added  inspiration  of  full  con- 
fidence that  this  ideal  is  to  be  realized.  The  vision  of 
"the  New  Jerusalem  coming  down  from  God  out  of 
heaven"  to  earth  is  a  prophecy  which  not  only  expresses 
God's  desire  but  reveals  his  purpose. 

It  is  objected  that  "there  can  be  nothing  perfect 
in  this  world  except  a  perfect  fool."  But  if  we  may  not 
reach  absolute  perfection,  the  law  of  progress  is  a  prom- 
ise that  we  may  always  more  and  more  closely  approxi- 
mate it.  Jesus,  however,  did  not  hesitate  to  hold  up 
the  standard  of  absolute  perfection.  He  said,  "Be 
ye,  therefore,  perfect,  even  as  your  Father  which  is  in 
heaven  is  perfect."1  He  measures  the  required  per- 

lMatt.  5:48. 


A  NEW  WORLD  -  IDEAL  81 

fection  by  that  of  God  himself.  In  like  manner,  in 
the  Lord's  Prayer,  He  makes  the  perfection  of  heaven 
the  standard  for  earthly  society,  for  the  full  realization 
of  which  in  the  world  we  should  daily  pray,  and  there- 
fore daily  work.  "Thy  kingdom  come.  Thy  will  be 
done  in  earth  as  it  is  in  heaven."1 

The  very  fact  that  we  are  able  to  conceive  of  per- 
fection, individual  and  social,  to  long  for  it,  and  to 
struggle  toward  it,  relates  us  to  God  and  heaven.  No 
brute  is  stirred  by  such  an  ideal.  Its  self-satisfaction  is 
its  doom.  The  fact  that  man  is  never  wholly  satis- 
fied, that  his  ideal  rises  as  he  climbs,  is  more  than  an 
"intimation  of  immortality."  It  is  his  hunger  for  the 
infinite  asserting  itself.  It  is  his  divine  sonship  rising 
into  consciousness,  and  stretching  out  its  arms  to  God, 
his  Father,  hi  perfect  harmony  with  whom  alone  his 
hunger  can  be  satisfied.  "I  shall  be  satisfied  when  I 
awake  in  his  likeness." 

The  perfection  of  heaven  as  an  ideal  for  an  earthly 
society  is  quite  as  reasonable,  quite  as  scriptural,  as  is 
the  perfection  of  God  as  a  personal  ideal  while  here  on 
the  earth.  Indeed,  to  hold  to  the  one  without  the 
other  is  inconsistent  and  irrational.  And  yet  there 
are  multitudes  of  Christian  people  in  the  world  who 
accept  for  themselves  the  required  personal  standard, 
and  who  would  deem  it  disloyalty  to  God  to  become 
reconciled  to  any  defect  of  character  in  themselves, 
who  never  dream  that  hi  accepting  any  evil  of  society 
as  necessary  and  permanent  they  are  guilty  of  treason 
to  the  kingdom  of  God;  and  treason  to  the  Kingdom 
is  treason  to  the  King. 

There  is  nothing  irrational  or  fanciful  in  setting 
before  the  community  and  the  world  the  highest  pos- 

'Matt.  6:10. 


82  THE  NEW  WORLD -LIFE 

sible  social  ideal  —  each  member  of  society  living  in 
glad  obedience  to  the  laws  of  his  own  life,  physical, 
mental,  and  spiritual,  thus  actualizing  the  ideal  man- 
hood, and  all  individuals  and  peoples  living  in  normal 
relations  with  each  other,  thus  realizing  the  ideal  society 
both  for  the  nation  and  for  the  world. 

In  the  long  past  God  has  had  little  help  from  man  in 
working  toward  the  realization  of  this  ideal.  Com- 
paratively few  have  wanted  to  help  and  fewer  still  have 
known  how.  As  we  have  seen,  ignorance  and  selfish- 
ness have  been  the  two  great  obstacles  in  the  path  of 
human  progress;  but  love  brings  men  into  harmony 
with  God's  purpose,  and  science  brings  men  into  har- 
mony with  God's  methods.  The  course  of  evolution 
in  the  mineral,  vegetable,  and  animal  worlds  was  unin- 
terrupted by  perverse  wills,  but  man  has  power  to 
resist  the  divine  benevolence  and  hence  to  retard  his 
own  progress.  When,  however,  human  wills  act  in 
full  harmony  with  the  divine,  they  will  then  help  as 
much  as  they  have  heretofore  hindered.  Until  the 
dawn  of  the  new  knowledge  the  race  blundered  upward 
in  the  dark.  Now  the  searchlight  of  science  is  turned 
upon  our  upward  road,  and  we  shall  run  in  the  way  of 
God's  commandments  when  our  heart  has  been  en- 
larged with  love. 

Knowledge  and  benevolence  are  all  that  are  needed 
to  make  men  efficient  colabourers  with  God  in  build- 
ing the  Holy  City  in  the  earth. 

Give  a  great  architect  a  great  opportunity  with 
materials  which  have  great  possibilities,  and  we  may 
confidently  expect  correspondingly  great  results.  The 
Builder  of  the  New  Jerusalem  in  the  earth  has  wis- 
dom and  skill  and  power  which  are  infinite.  Consider 
then  the  human  materials  with  which  He  is  at  work  in 


A  NEW  WORLD -IDEAL  83 

the  world.  What  possibilities  of  wise  intelligence,  of 
controlled  power,  of  heroic  endurance,  of  sacrificial 
service,  of  glowing  love,  of  radiant  beauty,  of  unspeak- 
able blessedness,  of  Godlike  character  there  are  in 
human  nature!  As  yet  these  possibilities  are  realized 
only  here  and  there,  but  every  new  discovery  of  science, 
every  new  creation  of  art,  every  new  act  of  heroism, 
every  new  triumph  of  righteousness,  every  new  embodi- 
ment of  spiritual  beauty  in  the  world,  every  character 
transformed  into  the  likeness  of  Christ  is  a  prophecy  of 
what  is  yet  to  come  in  ever-increasing  fulness.  Think 
then  what  the  world  will  be  when  sin  and  wretched- 
ness and  want  and  disease  shall  be  as  rare  as  they  are 
now  familiar;  when  knowledge  shall  be  as  universal 
as  is  ability  to  know;  when  joy  shall  beat  in  every  heart, 
and  blessedness  shall  be  as  every-day  as  human  life, 
and  brotherhood  as  broad  as  human  kind;  when  the 
Pauls,  and  Xaviers,  and  Livingstones  who  have  gladly 
worn  out  their  lives  for  brother  men  shall  have  ceased 
to  be  singular,  and  the  passion  for  humanity  shall  be 
the  common  mark  of  common  men!  Will  it  be  earth 
or  heaven?  Or,  rather,  will  it  not  be  both?  In  the 
glowing  words  of  Edwin  Markham: 

"  We  men  of  earth  have  here  the  stuff 
Of  Paradise  —  we  have  enough! 
We  need  no  other  thing  to  build 
The  stairs  into  the  Unfulfilled  — 
No  other  ivory  for  the  doors  — 
No  other  marble  for  the  floors  — 
No  other  cedar  for  the  beam 
And  dome  of  man's  immortal  dream. 

Here  on  the  paths  of  every  day  — 
Here  on  the  common  human  way  — 
Is  all  the  busy  gods  would  take 
To  build  a  heaven,  to  mould  and  make 
New  Edens.     Ours  the  stuff  sublime 
To  build  Eternity  in  time!" 


PART  II 
THE  NEW  WORLD-PROBLEMS 


CHAPTER  V 
THE  NEW  INDUSTRIAL  PROBLEM 

IN  1769,  the  same  year  in  which  the  Duke  of  Welling- 
ton and  Napoleon  Bonaparte  were  born,  James  Watt 
patented  his  steam-engine,  which  was  destined  to  exert 
more  influence  in  shaping  the  world's  future  than  both 
of  these  great  captains  put  together.  The  Napoleonic 
wars  changed  the  map  of  Europe;  the  steam-engine  gave 
to  the  world  a  new  civilization. 

The  late  William  E.  Dodge  told  me  that  his  grand- 
father, a  resident  of  New  York  City,  once  asked  the 
prayers  of  his  church  as  he  was  about  to  undertake 
"the  long  and  perilous  journey  to  Rochester."  An 
English  friend  of  mine  on  his  westward  way  around  the 
world  was  overtaken  by  a  business  cablegram  at  Seattle. 
"I  concluded,"  said  he,  "that  I  would  just  take  a  run 
back  to  London  and  talk  the  matter  over  with  my 
partners." 

Now  this  "run  back  to  London,"  including  three 
thousand  miles  across  the  mountains,  canyons,  rivers, 
and  plains  of  a  continent,  plus  three  thousand  more 
across  the  ocean,  involved  less  of  time,  less  of  discomfort, 
and  less  of  actual  danger  than  "  the  long  and  perilous" 
journey  from  New  York  to  Rochester.  The  one  inci- 
dent represented  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury, the  other  that  of  the  twentieth. 

The  radical  change  in  travel  and  transportation  which 
took  place  during  the  past  hundred  years  fairly  repre- 

87 


88  THE  NEW  WORLD -LIFE 

sents  the  profound  revolution  in  industry  and,  there- 
fore, in  every  phase  of  civilization,  the  greater  part  of 
which  has  occurred  within  the  memory  of  living  men. 

National  religions,  national  ideals,  and  national 
heroes  have  all  had  far-reaching  influence  hi  shaping 
civilizations,  but  no  one  of  these  can  compare  with 
industry  in  the  constancy  and  universality  of  its  opera- 
tion, or  in  the  magnitude  of  its  effects. 

Bodily  wants  are  no  more  real  than  intellectual  and 
spiritual  needs,  but  they  are  vastly  more  conscious 
and  clamorous,  and  among  all  peoples  and  in  all  ages 
they  have  afforded  the  chief  stimulus  to  action.  A 
radical  change,  therefore,  in  the  character  or  methods 
of  industry  has  always  involved  a  like  change  in 
civilization. 

The  transition  from  hunting  to  the  tending  of  flocks 
and  herds  was  an  advance  from  savagery  to  civiliza- 
tion in  its  most  primitive  form.  The  change  from  pas- 
toral life  to  the  cultivation  of  the  soil  substituted  the 
house  for  the  tent,  and  by  anchoring  peoples,  trans- 
formed customs,  governments,  laws,  institutions,  and  all 
the  conditions  of  life.  Thus  civilization  evolved  from 
the  nomadic  to  the  agricultural  type.  In  other  words, 
a  new  method  of  gaining  a  livelihood  created  a  new 
civilization. 

Slowly  the  mechanical  arts  developed,  and  their 
products,  together  with  those  of  different  climates,  cre- 
ated a  basis  for  trade.  Not  only  goods,  but  ideas  were 
exchanged  by  caravans  and  ships.  Cities  were  built, 
and  a  commercial  civilization  appeared  which  was  as 
different  from  agricultural  as  agricultural  was  different 
from  nomadic.  Again,  a  new  method  of  gaining  a 
livelihood  had  created  a  new  civilization. 

Down  to  the  nineteenth  century  the  world's  work  had 


NEW  PROBLEM  OF  INDUSTRY  89 

been  done  by  muscles;  and  vital  power  was  expensive. 
It  required  years  to  produce  a  hundred  horse-power  or 
man-power  and  it  was  costly  to  maintain;  but  when 
mechanical  power  was  substituted  for  vital,  there  came 
the  profoundest  change  in  the  history  of  material  civil- 
ization. The  new  power  could  be  easily  and  quickly 
produced,  and  cheaply  maintained.  Its  general  appli- 
cation has  revolutionized  agriculture,  commerce,  and 
industry.  Each  of  these  three  elements  enters  into 
modern  civilization,  but  the  mechanical  arts  have 
been  so  utterly  transformed  and  their  products  so 
astonishingly  multiplied  that  the  new  civilization  is 
appropriately  called  "industrial,"  and  this  profoundest 
change  in  the  history  of  the  world  is  known  as  the 
Industrial  Revolution. 

By  this  revolution  the  western  world  has  been  re- 
created. 

Until  the  advent  of  mechanical  power  the  great 
bulk  of  the  world's  wealth  was  in  land.  Under  the 
feudal  system  landed  property  was  almost  as  unob- 
tainable as  it  was  immovable,  except  by  inheritance. 
Those  who  held  it  were  the  privileged  class  who  were 
born  to  position  and  possession.  Land  could  not  be 
alienated  without  the  consent  of  the  heirs;  hence  the 
rigidity  of  society.  The  peasant  no  more  strove  for 
wealth  than  for  wings,  which  were  about  equally  im- 
possible. But  with  the  advent  of  the  industrial  revolu- 
tion an  ever  increasing  proportion  of  wealth  became 
portable  —  a  very  important  fact.  As  long  as  most  of 
the  world's  wealth  was  immovable  and  inaccessible 
trade  and  commerce  were  necessarily  restricted  within 
narrow  limits;  capital  for  the  development  of  natural 
resources  was  not  available;  there  was  little  or  no 
appeal  to  energy,  enterprise,  initiative,  ingenuity, 


90  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

administrative  and  financiering  abilities  —  precisely 
the  qualities  which  in  a  single  century  have  created  the 
bewildering  wealth  of  America. 

The  cheap  power,  however,  which  Watt  gave  to  the 
world  stimulated  invention  so  that  the  productiveness 
of  labour  in  the  field  of  manufactures  was  multiplied 
ten,  twenty,  fifty,  a  hundred  fold  or  more.  Thus  there 
was  a  new  and  rapid  creation  of  portable  wealth  which 
was  of  vast  significance.  As  movable  wealth  multi- 
plied it  passed  more  and  more  into  the  hands  of  men 
who  were  gifted  with  marked  commercial  instincts  and 
abilities;  and  with  the  greater  part  of  the  capital  in 
possession  of  the  bourgeoisie  they  emerged  as  a  new 
power,  becoming  at  length  the  ruling  class. 

The  landed  proprietors,  when  they  were  dominant, 
had  something  more  than  wealth.  They  could  lay 
claim  to  birth  and  breeding,  and  to  all  the  traditions 
of  aristocracy.  With  the  inheritance  of  the  land  came 
certain  magisterial  duties  and  dignities  together  with 
recognized  obligations  to  society  expressed  hi  the 
phrase,  noblesse  oblige.  But  the  accession  of  the  bour- 
geoisie to  power  was  the  crowning  of  bald  wealth, 
unadorned  by  rank,  gifts,  or  graces  —  a  step  the  far- 
reaching  importance  of  which  no  one  could  have  fore- 
seen. It  marked  the  downfall  of  the  aristocracy  of 
birth  and  the  rise  of  the  aristocracy  of  wealth. 

Thus  the  industrial  revolution  introduced  the  capi- 
talistic system  or  era,  and  created  the  new  problem  of 
wealth  —  a  blessing  or  a  curse? 

Different  races  kept  the  peace  admirably  so  long 
as  they  were  separated  by  nearly  impassable  moun- 
tains, deserts,  and  seas,  but  modern  conditions  of  trans- 
portation and  communication  have  reduced  the  world 
to  a  neighbourhood  and  have  multiplied  contacts;  and 


NEW  PROBLEM  OF  INDUSTRY  91 

industrial  competition  is  increasing  international  fric- 
tion and  interracial  jealousy. 

Thus  the  industrial  revolution  is  creating  a  new  race 
problem  —  brothers  or  enemies? 

When  power  was  muscular,  every  worker  had  his 
own,  and  industry  was  individualistic.  But  the  sta- 
tionary steam-engine  de-individualized  power  and 
centralized  it.  Steam,  therefore,  de-individualized 
industry  and  organized  it;  hence  it  is  de-individualizing 
civilization,  and  rendering  it  social  or  collective.  The 
old  relations  of  the  individual  to  his  fellows  have  been 
radically  changed,  and  many  questions  are  raised  as  to 
what  these  relations  ought  to  be  and  are  to  be. 

The  industrial  revolution,  therefore,  has  created 
a  new  problem  of  the  relations  of  the  individual  and  so- 
ciety —  the  balance  of  both  or  the  sacrifice  of  one? 

All  of  these  great  problems  which  have  come  with 
the  new  civilization  are  problems  of  readjustment.  A 
radical  change  of  environment  requires  that  life  should 
adapt  itself  or  perish.  In  many  respects  there  have 
been  greater  changes  during  the  past  century  than 
during  many  tens  of  thousands  of  years  preceding.  A 
century  is  but  a  day  in  the  life  of  the  race  and  read- 
justment in  that  brief  period  demands  a  wholly  un- 
precedented rate  of  movement.  This  puts  a  vast 
pressure  on  legislatures,  which  in  the  United  States  are 
asked  to  pass  on  thousands  of  measures  every  year; 
and  the  result  of  this  congestion  is  much  ill-advised 
legislation. 

The  industrial  revolution,  therefore,  has  created  a 
new  legislative  problem  —  science  or  the  rule  of  thumb? 

With  the  discovery  of  the  sea  route  to  the  East  by 
da  Gama,  and  the  settlement  of  America,  the  world 
was  waiting  only  for  the  new  mobility  given  to  wealth 


92  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

and  the  new  facility  of  manufacture  to  inaugurate  an 
unprecedented  era  of  commerce.  The  advent  of  the 
railway  gave  another  great  impetus  to  oversea  traffic 
by  connecting  the  interior  with  the  coast.  The  new 
facilities  of  travel  by  land  and  sea  mobilized  great  popu- 
lations and  made  easy  their  redistribution  in  response  to 
new  industrial  demands,  while  an  enormous  develop- 
ment of  manufactures  concentrated  ever-increasing 
numbers  at  points  commercially  advantageous. 

Thus  the  industrial  revolution  created  the  new  problem 
of  the  city  —  the  dominion  of  the  world  for  good  or  for 
evil? 

These  six  problems  are  rapidly  becoming  world- 
problems  because  the  industrial  revolution,  from  which 
they  spring,  is  rapidly  becoming  a  world  revolution. 
They  will  each  be  discussed  in  succeeding  chapters;  in 
this  we  are  especially  concerned  with  the  industrial 
problem. 

I.      THE  NEW  EVOLUTION  OP  SOCIETY 

The  transition  from  domestic  industry  to  the  fac- 
tory system  has  radically  changed  men's  relations  to 
one  another. 

This  marks  the  most  important  advance  in  the  evolu- 
tion of  society  since  man  became  man. 

The  progenitors  of  man  were  under  the  law  of  the 
jungle;  there  was  no  sense  of  right  or  wrong.  Not  until 
self -consciousness  was  evolved  could  conscience  appear; 
then  came  moral  accountability,  and  man  had  become 
human. 

Social  life,  like  every  other  form  of  life,  is  organic, 
and  has  followed  the  laws  of  evolution.  It  has  de- 
veloped from  lower  to  higher  forms,  corresponding 


NEW  PROBLEM  OF  INDUSTRY  93 

more  or  less  closely  to  the  great  divisions  of  the  animal 
kingdom.  Society  rose  in  the  scale  of  life  as  rapidly 
as  it  was  able  to  differentiate  and  coordinate  its  various 
organs  and  their  functions.  Says  Professor  John  B. 
Clark,  of  Columbia  University:  "Social  differentia- 
tion is  division  of  labour,  a  thing  which  has  but  a  rudi- 
mentary existence  in  the  most  primitive  tribes,  which 
develops  hi  the  intermediate  types,  and  is  carried  to  an 
indefinite  extent  hi  high  civilization.  In  everything 
that  can  be  termed  a  society  a  traceable  degree  of  inter- 
dependence exists  among  the  members;  and,  with 
advancing  civilization,  each  member  labours  less  and 
less  for  himself,  and  more  and  more  for  the  social 
whole.  This  is  economic  altruism,  to  the  future  de- 
velopment of  which  no  limits  can  be  assigned."1  The 
division  of  labour  is  the  very  essence  of  organized  in- 
dustry; and  the  subdivision  of  labour  has  become  so 
minute  that  organized  industry  has  given  a  tremen- 
dous impetus  to  the  higher  organization  of  society. 

Indeed,  with  the  coming  of  the  industrial  revolution, 
society  has  undergone  a  change  so  momentous  that  it 
has  developed  not  only  entirely  new  conditions,  new 
possibilities  and  new  perils,  but  also  new  attributes  — 
a  social  consciousness,  which  makes  possible,  and  is 
making  actual,  a  social  conscience  and  the  recognition 
of  new  social  rights  and  duties;  there  is  appearing  also 
a  new  social  spirit. 

Thus  within  two  or  three  generations  the  social 
organism  has  achieved  the  same  plane  of  evolution  that 
man  reached  when  he  gained  a  conscience  and  became 
human.  We  may  say  that  society  has  now  been  human- 
ized and  has  become  responsible. 

Of  course  we  recognize  the  fact  that  human  life  has 

l"The  Philosophy  of  Wealth,"  pp.  38,39. 


94  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

always  been  more  or  less  social,  but  in  order  to  mark  the 
profound  change  which  has  taken  place  we  appropri- 
ately speak  of  the  old  civilization  as  "individualistic" 
and  of  the  new  as  "social"  or  "collective."  Though  it 
was  true  in  St.  Paul's  time  that  "no  man  liveth  unto 
himself,  and  no  man  dieth  unto  himself,"  it  is  evident 
that  hi  recent  years  men  of  the  same  community  have 
come  to  live  one  life  as  never  before  in  the  history  of  the 
world. 

As  long  ago  as  1790  Edmund  Burke,  against  the 
prevailing  theory  of  his  day,  said :  "It  (society)  is  not 
a  partnership  in  things  subservient  only  to  the  gross 
animal  existence  of  a  temporary  and  perishable  nature. 
It  is  a  partnership  in  all  science,  a  partnership  in  all  art, 
a  partnership  in  every  virtue  and  in  all  perfection. 
As  the  ends  of  such  a  partnership  cannot  be  obtained 
hi  many  generations,  it  becomes  a  partnership  not  only 
between  those  who  are  living  but  between  those  who 
are  living  and  those  who  are  dead,  and  those  who  are 
to  be  born."1  This  passage  inspired  a  feeling  of  "pro- 
found surprise"  in  Benjamin  Kidd.  "For  Burke,"  he 
says,  "had  even  at  the  date  in  question,  risen  to  the 
height  of  perceiving  society  as  science  will  undoubtedly 
perceive  it  in  the  future  —  that  is  to  say,  as  a  living 
and  developing  organism."2 

Herbert  Spencer,  as  we  are  well  aware,  taught  that 
society  is  a  living  organism,  and  pointed  out  many 
likenesses  between  the  social  organism  and  the  in- 
dividual organism.  He  also  noted  some  striking  dif- 
ferences which  later  science  has  transferred  to  the  list  of 
resemblances. 

Professor  John  B.  Clark  writes:     "The  parts  of  an 

"'Reflections  on  the  Revolution  in  France,"&c. 

'"Principles  of  Western  Civilization,"  p.  118. 


NEW  PROBLEM  OF  INDUSTRY  95 

organism  have  been  said  to  be  so  related  that  'each  is 
at  the  same  time  the  means  and  the  end  of  all  the 
others.'  The  rootlet  of  a  tree  shares  with  the  remote  leaf 
the  nutriment  which  it  absorbs  from  the  earth,  and  the 
leaf  shares  with  the  rootlet  that  which  it  gathers  from 
the  sunlight  and  the  air.  This  universal  interdepend- 
ence of  parts  is  a  primary  characteristic  of  social 
organisms;  each  member  exists  and  labours,  not  for  him- 
self, but  for  the  whole,  and  is  dependent  on  the  whole 
for  remuneration.  The  individual  man,  like  the  root- 
let, produces  something,  puts  it  into  the  circulating 
system  of  the  organism,  and  gets  from  thence  that 
which  his  being  and  growth  require;  he  produces  for  the 
market,  and  buys  from  the  market.  Every  producer 
is  serving  the  world,  and  the  world  is  serving  every 
consumer."  He  continues,  "The  analogy  between 
society  and  the  human  body  was  familiar  to  the  an- 
cients. It  is  a  discovery  of  recent  times  that  a  society 
is  not  merely  like  an  organism;  it  is  one  in  literal  fact."1 

II.      MAL-ADJTJSTMENT 

The  Labour  problem  like  all  other  problems  of  life 
is  one  of  adjustment.  The  existing  maladjustment  is 
twofold,  of  spirit  and  of  form. 

'"The  Philosophy  of  Wealth,"  pp.  37,  38. 

Professor  Lester  F.  Ward  would  not  go  so  far  as  to  call  society  an 
organism,  but  in  an  address  before  the  American  Sociological  So- 
ciety (December  27-29, 1906)  said :  "  If  it  is  not  an '  organism "... 
it  is  at  least  a  great  organization,  bound  together  by  organic  ties  in 
all  its  parts.  To  be  more  specific,  sociology  shows  us  that  human 
institutions  constitute  the  structures,  organs,  and  'organic  parts  of 
society,  and  that  they  are  not  independent,  but  are  connected  into  one 
great  system,  which  is  society." 

Professor  Drummond  says  ("The  Ascent  of  Man,"  p.  266):  "It 
has  long  been  perceived  that  society  is  an  organism,  and  an  organism 
which  has  grown  by  natural  growth  like  a  tree." 


96  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

1.  The  old  individualistic  spirit  has  been  brought 
over  into  the  new  social  order. 

The  fundamental  law  of  every  organism,  binding  on 
every  organ  and  member,  is  the  law  of  service  —  that 
is,  each  for  all,  and  all  for  each.  This  being  true,  an 
attempt  on  the  part  of  the  various  members  of  the 
social  organism  to  live  each  for  itself  must  of  necessity 
work  confusion. 

In  the  human  body  the  head,  the  hands,  the  feet  have 
common  interests.  If  one  member  suffers,  all  the 
members  suffer  with  it.  All  parts  of  the  body  are 
served  in  common  and  built  up  by  the  blood,  which, 
like  money,  is  the  "circulating  medium."  If  one  arm 
does  more  work  than  the  other,  it  receives  more  pay  — 
that  is,  it  draws  to  itself  more  blood,  with  the  result 
that  it  gets  more  growing  material  and  hence  becomes 
stronger  than  the  other.  Just  hi  proportion  as  the 
brain  works,  it  draws  blood  to  itself  and  is  built  up. 
The  more  any  member  spends  by  its  activity,  the 
more  it  is  compensated;  so  that  the  body  has  what 
might  be  called  a  self-adjusting  wage  system  which  is 
perfectly  equitable. 

Now  let  us  suppose  that  the  several  members  of  the 
body  become  selfish,  and  there  takes  place,  in  conse- 
quence, what  St.  Paul  calls  a  "schism  in  the  body." 
Forgetting  that  they  are  mutually  dependent,  the  eye 
says  to  the  hand,  "I  have  no  need  of  thee";  or  the  head 
says  to  the  feet,  "  I  have  no  need  of  you" ;  or  hands  and 
feet  organize  a  strike  against  the  head  and  refuse  to 
feed  it.  How  much  added  strength  would  the  muscles 
get  by  refusing  food  to  the  mouth? 

Or,  we  will  suppose  that  the  self-adjusting  wage 
system  of  the  body  gets  out  of  order,  with  the  result 
that  there  arises  a  dispute  between  the  brain  and  the 


NEW  PROBLEM  OF  INDUSTRY          97 

limbs  as  to  which  is  entitled  to  more  of  the  "circulating 
medium."  The  limbs  say:  "Anybody  can  see  that 
we  are  the  workers;  we  produce  the  results.  Let  the 
brain  try  to  swing  a  pick,  or  climb  a  ladder,  or  plough 
a  furrow,  or  carry  a  load  without  us,  and  it  will  dis- 
cover that  we  do  the  world's  work,  and  create  the 
world's  wealth."  Accordingly  the  limbs  by  some  com- 
bination succeed  in  drawing  to  themselves  much  of 
the  blood  which  belongs  to  the  brain.  In  consequence 
the  brain  becomes  weakened  and  does  not  direct  the 
movements  of  the  limbs  intelligently.  And  if  this 
robbery  of  the  brain  goes  far  enough,  unconsciousness 
follows  and  the  man  "faints  away  ";  then  how  much  is 
all  the  muscular  power  of  the  limbs  worth? 

Or,  we  will  suppose  that  the  head  proposes  to  en- 
large itself  at  the  expense  of  the  limbs,  on  the  ground 
that  they  are  mere  machines  and  represent  nothing 
but  brute  strength;  that  it  is  the  brain  which  produces 
the  arts  and  sciences  and  the  progress  of  civilization, 
and  has  all  the  wants  of  civilized  life  and  therefore 
needs,  no  less  than  it  deserves,  most  of  the  "circulating 
medium."  Accordingly  it  draws  more  and  more  of  the 
blood  to  itself,  with  the  result  that  the  efficiency  of 
the  limbs  is  impaired;  the  health  of  the  whole  body 
(including  the  head)  suffers;  and  if  the  rush  of  blood  to 
the  head  is  sufficiently  aggravated,  it  produces  apo- 
plexy; the  brain  loses  all  power  of  thought  and  enjoy- 
ment, and  the  whole  man  is  prostrated. 

Whether  the  above  illustration  has  any  force  with 
the  reader  will  depend  on  his  view  of  the  relations  of 
capital  and  labour  whether  their  interests  are  common 
or  antagonistic.  Professor  Huxley  remarks :  "I  think 
it  may  not  be  too  much  to  say  that,  of  all  the  political 
delusions  which  are  current  in  this  queer  world,  the 


98  THE  NEW  WORLD -LIFE 

very  stupidest  are  those  which  assume  that  labour  and 
capital  are  necessarily  antagonistic.  .  .  .  On  the 
contrary,  capital  and  labour  are,  necessarily,  close 
allies."1  On  the  other  hand,  Mr.  N.  O.  Nelson,  who  is 
both  an  employer  and  a  firm  friend  of  labour,  refers 
to  the  "irreconcilable  conflict  of  interests"  between  the 
two,  and  says:  "  .  .  .  in  their  relation  as  employer 
and  hired  hand  they  conflict  in  a  way  which  may  in  all 
fairness  be  called  irrepressible."  2  Both  of  these  views 
are  correct.  That  is,  when  the  relations  between  em- 
ployers and  employees  are  normal  then-  interests  are 
common.  When  these  relations  are  abnormal  their 
interests  are  conflicting.  The  converse  is  also  true;  so 
that  the  practically  universal  conflict  of  interests  to-day 
indicates  that  abnormal  relations  are  practically  uni- 
versal. 

In  organized  industry  "The  time  is  out  of  joint" 
because  the  spirit  of  selfish  competition  controls  where 
unselfish  cooperation  would  normally  exist.  It  is  not 
difficult  to  see  how  competition,  which  was  mild  under 
individualistic  industry,  developed  into  the  "cut- 
throat" variety  as  industry  became  more  and  more 
highly  organized. 

In  individualistic  industry  the  shopkeeper  was  at 
the  same  time  the  artisan  and  the  retailer.  It  was  not 
easy  for  him  to  enlarge  his  business  rapidly  for  that 
would  necessitate  both  additional  capital  which  was 
difficult  to  get  and  additional  customers  who  were 
hardly  less  difficult  to  obtain,  because  personal  acquain- 
tance served  to  bind  customers  to  then-  regular  dealers. 
Competition  was,  therefore,  mild  and  doubtless  whole- 
some. 

'"Evolution  and  Ethics,"  pp.  186,  187. 
'"Labour  and  Capital,"  p.  344. 


NEW  PROBLEM  OF  INDUSTRY          99 

Machinefacture,  however,  was  much  cheaper  than 
handfacture;  so  that  the  shopkeeper  soon  learned  that 
he  could  buy  cheaper  than  he  could  make.  It  was  also 
found  that  large  sales  would  compensate  for  narrow 
margins  of  profit.  The  shopkeeper,  therefore,  had 
every  motive  to  give  up  making  and  to  invest  all  of  his 
limited  capital  in  trading.  This  enabled  him  to  buy 
more  largely  and  more  cheaply,  and  therefore  decidedly 
undersell  his  rivals  who  clung  to  the  old  system,  thus 
compelling  them  to  adopt  the  new. 

In  this  way  goods  were  multiplied,  prices  reduced, 
the  standard  of  living  raised,  and  competition  increased 
from  the  retailer  back  to  the  manufacturer,  who  learned, 
after  a  time,  that  enlarging  the  output  materially  re- 
duced the  cost  of  production.  This  of  course  led  to 
the  massing  of  capital,  through  successive  stages,  up 
to  the  development  of  the  trust. 

Throughout  this  evolution  from  the  old  industry  to 
the  new,  competition  compelled  concentration,  and 
concentration  stimulated  competition  until  its  inten- 
sity found  relief  in  practical  monopoly. 

Professor  Clark  thus  describes  the  industrial  system 
which  was  revolutionized  by  machinery:  "The  era 
was  one  of  uneconomical  methods  of  work,  of  divided 
and  localized  production,  of  large  profits  and  small 
sales,  of  high  prices  to  society  as  a  consumer,  of  little 
general  wealth,  but  of  comparative  equality  and  con- 
tentment among  the  middle  class  in  the  community."1 
It  is  interesting  to  observe  how  precisely  opposite  at 
every  point  are  the  conditions  under  organized  in- 
dustry. We  see  a  surprising  economy  in  methods  of 
work,  centralized  production  supplying  an  ever  extend- 
ing  market,  small  margins  of  profit  and  large  sales,  low 

l"The  Philosophy  of  Wealth,"  p.  122. 


100  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

prices  to  the  consumer,  an  enormous  increase  of  wealth, 
and  a  like  increase  of  inequality  between  classes  and 
of  discontent  among  workingmen. 

We  may  remind  ourselves,  in  passing,  that  this  is  the 
revolution  which  is  on  its  way  around  the  globe,  over- 
turning civilizations,  and  remaking  the  world. 

It  is  the  old  individualistic  spirit  expressed  in  selfish 
competition,  growing  ever  more  intense  under  the  new 
conditions,  which  has  caused  most  of  the  disorders  by 
which  industry  is  afflicted,  and  has  produced  many 
subordinate  labour  problems.  It  is  selfishness  which 
creates  the  problem  of  sweated  industry,  and  that  of 
child  labour,  and  that  of  women  in  industry,  making 
them  the  industrial  competitors  of  men  instead  of  co- 
labourers  with  them,  thus  profoundly  affecting  the 
family  and  the  home.  It  is  selfishness  which  compels 
men  to  work  long  hours,  often  times  under  unsanitary 
conditions  and  such  high  pressure  as  to  wear  them  out 
by  middle  life,  when  they  are  flung  away.  One  half 
of  the  steel  workers  hi  America  have  a  regular  twelve- 
hour  day ;  and  a  third  of  those  actually  engaged  in  manu- 
facturing processes  worked,  in  1910,  not  only  twelve 
hours  a  day  but  seven  days  a  week.  There  are  a  dozen 
industries  or  occupations  in  this  country  in  which  the 
same  hours  obtain  —  the  same  monotonous  grind  of 
eighty -four  hours  every  week.  What  opportunity 
have  such  men  to  develop  the  intellectual  and  spiritual 
We,  and  to  cultivate  the  domestic,  social,  and  civic 
virtues?  There  are  many  thousands  of  workmen  in 
the  steel  industry  who  work  either  eighteen  or  twenty- 
four  consecutive  hours  regularly  every  two  weeks. 
Says  Mr.  John  A.  Fitch,  expert  on  the  "Pittsburgh 
Survey":  "If  I  were  to  sum  up  what  the  men  who 
work  in  the  steel  mills  all  over  the  United  States  have 


NEW  PROBLEM  OF  INDUSTRY         101 

said  to  me  about  this  thing,  I  should  quote  their  own 
explosive  words :  'It's  hell.'' 

Industrial  accidents,  of  which  there  are  more  than 
half  a  million  every  year,  constitute  another  labour 
problem  of  ever-growing  importance.  Some  of  these 
accidents  are  due  to  the  carelessness  of  workmen,  but 
overwork  and  the  lack  of  safety  appliances  are  respon- 
sible for  many.  More  than  one  half  are  undoubtedly 
preventable. 

In  the  labour  problems  mentioned  above  instead  of 
making  wealth  a  means  of  producing  manhood  and 
womanhood,  selfishness  sacrifices  men,  women,  and 
little  children  to  the  production  of  wealth.  One  might 
suppose  that  goods  are  made  to  be  consumed  by  men; 
but  selfishness  consumes  men  in  making  goods. 

Again,  in  a  normal  society  the  object  of  production  of 
every  sort  is  to  supply  the  members  of  society  with  the 
necessaries,  conveniences,  and  comforts  of  life;  and  it  is 
important  that  prices  should  be  low  that  all  may  share 
as  generally  as  possible.  Selfishness,  however,  which 
makes  profit  instead  of  service  the  object  of  production, 
often  restricts  the  output  for  the  express  purpose  of 
raising  or  sustaining  prices.  In  like  manner  it  "cor- 
ners" foodstuffs,  thus  deliberately  coining  wealth  out  of 
human  suffering  and  life. 

Again,  selfish  competition  prepares  conditions  for 
industrial  panics  and  the  resulting  paralysis,  during 
which  idle  men,  who  would  gladly  work,  starve  in  the 
midst  of  glutted  markets.  It  was  a  sad  illustration  of 
dislocation  in  the  industrial  system  when  in  London  a 
few  years  ago,  in  response  to  an  advertisement  for  a 
porter  at  a  wage  of  $4.50  a  week  and  meals,  3,000  men 
applied  for  the  situation. 

Again,  it  is  selfish  competition  which  treats  labour  as 


102  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

a  mere  commodity,  buying  it  as  one  would  buy  raw 
materials  in  the  cheapest  market.  This  naturally  leads 
to  the  organization  of  capital  and  labour  in  two  hostile 
camps,  with  resulting  strikes,  lockouts,  and  riots.  Of 
course  there  develop  class  antagonism  and  class  con- 
sciousness on  which  socialism  feeds  and  grows. 

The  following  statement  of  certain  evils  growing  out 
of  conditions  created  by  modern  industry  is  from  the 
quadrennial  address  of  the  Bishops  of  the  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church:1  "We  live  in  an  age  in  which  the 
vast  enterprises  essential  to  the  progress  of  the  world 
require  the  association  of  men  of  large  means  under 
corporate  management.  Out  of  this  necessity  have 
grown  serious  wrongs  and  consequent  resistance. 

"Organized  capital  stands  indicted  at  the  bar  of 
public  judgment  for  the  gravest  crimes  against  the 
common  welfare.  Among  the  counts  in  that  indict- 
ment are  such  as  these: 

"1.  Conspiring  to  advance  prices  on  the  staple  com- 
modities indispensable  to  the  life,  well-being  and  prog- 
ress of  the  people. 

"2.  Resorting  to  adulteration  of  foods,  fabrics,  and 
materials  in  order  to  increase  profits  already  excessive. 

"3.  Destroying  the  competition  in  trade  through 
which  relief  might  be  expected  under  normal  conditions. 

"4.  Suborning  legislation,  and  thus  robbing  the 
people  of  the  first  orderly  recourse  of  the  weak  against 
the  strong. 

"These  are  sins  against  humanity.  If  God  hates 
any  sin  above  another,  it  must  be  the  robbery  of  the 
poor  and  defenceless.  Otherwise  His  love  fails  when  it 
is  most  needed  and  might  find  its  largest  opportunity. 
.  .  .  This  is  not  saying  that  all  corporations  deal 

'Meeting  in  Minneapolis,  May,  1912. 


NEW  PROBLEM  OF  INDUSTRY         103 

treacherously  with  the  people.  There  are  honourable 
exceptions.  But  enough  is  known  of  the  heartless 
greed  that  fattens  off  of  the  hunger-driven  millions  to 
warrant  the  strongest  protective  associations  on  the 
part  of  the  people." 

This  passage  was  followed  by  a  condemnation  of 
lawless  violence,  the  boycott,  and  other  abuses  incident 
to  the  struggle  between  organized  capital  and  organized 
labour.  These  are  not  the  utterances  of  professional 
agitators,  nor  of  biased  labour  leaders,  but  of  men 
whose  position  and  habit  of  mind  enable  them  not  only 
to  utter  the  convictions  of  the  great  church  which 
they  officially  represent,  but  to  express  the  enlightened 
Christian  conscience  of  the  nation. 

Each  and  all  of  the  evils  specified  above  are  counts 
in  the  indictment  of  selfishness,  which  is  the  inspiring 
spirit  of  organized  industry.  Not  that  all  employers 
and  all  employees  are  selfish.  There  are  both  selfish 
and  unselfish  men  in  both  camps;  and  the  latter  are 
often  the  unwilling  victims  of  the  system  in  which 
they  find  themselves  entangled.  But  they  have  not  un- 
derstood the  fundamental  cause  of  industrial  troubles. 
They  have  supposed  that  every  man  had  to  work  for 
his  own  personal  interest,  of  course,  and  that  there  was 
no  other  way.  They  have  accordingly  expected  noth- 
ing else  of  each  other.  Selfishness  as  the  inspiring 
motive  of  industry  has  had  the  sanction  of  orthodox 
economic  science.  Professor  Perry  says:  "In  the 
whole  field  of  exchange  the  just  and  comprehensive 
rule  always  will  be,  that  when  men  exchange  services 
with  each  other,  each  party  is  bound  to  look  out  for 
his  own  interest,  to  know  the  market  value  of  his  own 
service,  and  to  obtain  the  best  terms  for  himself  which 
he  can  make.  Capital  does  this  for  itself,  and  labourers 


104  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

ought  to  do  this  for  themselves,  and  if  they  are  per- 
sistently cheated  in  the  exchange,  they  have  nobody 
to  blame  but  themselves."  Here  is  a  frank  recogni- 
tion that  selfishness  is  the  basis  of  the  relations  between 
capital  and  labour,  and  a  shameless  declaration  that 
this  basis  is  not  only  inevitable  but  right. 

Such  teachings  have  benumbed  the  conscience  and 
blinded  the  eyes;  and  men  have  not  understood  that 
such  a  spirit  in  the  midst  of  a  great  organized  life  whose 
fundamental  law  was  unselfish  service,  was  a  malad- 
justment which  must  inevitably  work  confusion. 

2.  Furthermore,  the  existing  aristocratic  form  of  in- 
dustry is  a  maladjustment  to  our  democratic  form  of 
government, 

The  truth  of  the  above  proposition  is  so  obvious  that 
it  hardly  needs  to  be  re-enforced  by  argument. 

A  writer  in  the  "Encyclopedia  Britannica'"  (ninth 
edition,  1888)  said:  "The  great  American  Republic 
seems  to  be  entering  upon  a  new  era,  in  which  it  must 
meet  and  solve  a  new  problem  —  the  reconciliation  of 
democracy  with  the  modern  conditions  of  production."1 
What  seemed  to  be  a  peculiarly  American  problem  a 
quarter  of  a  century  ago  is  now  rapidly  becoming  a 
world  problem.  The  most  notable  and  most  nearly 
universal  movement  of  modern  times  has  been  the  rise 
of  the  common  people.  The  industrial  revolution  is 
also  enveloping  the  civilized  world,  strengthening  the 
democratic  movement  by  intensifying  the  spirit  of 
popular  discontent,  and,  at  the  same  time  under  the 
influence  of  competition,  massing  capital  and  centraliz- 
ing control,  thus  rendering  the  organization  of  indus- 
try increasingly  autocratic  —  an  anomalous  condition 
which  is  obviously  unstable  and  transitional. 

'Vol.  XXIH,  p.  787. 


NEW  PROBLEM  OF  INDUSTRY         105 

An  agricultural  population  is  scattered.  The  in- 
dustrial revolution  by  creating  cities  masses  the  people. 
Great  numbers  of  workingmen  are  brought  into  close 
contact  under  like  conditions.  They  have  many 
things  hi  common.  They  of  course  discuss  then*  com- 
mon interests,  and  soon  learn  to  organize  in  order  to 
improve  the  conditions  of  labour.  Thus  they  become 
conscious  of  their  power  and  learn  to  assert  themselves. 
The  disturbances  in  Russia  which  began  with  strikes 
in  St.  Petersburg  in  January,  1905,  easily  and  quickly 
took  on  a  political  complexion  and  became  revolution- 
ary in  character.  Thus  the  new  industrial  civilization 
stimulates  the  democratic  spirit.  Asia  has  been  agri- 
cultural and  despotic;  it  is  to  become  industrial,  like 
Europe  and  America,  with  a  consequent  impetus  to  the 
democratic  movement. 

On  the  eastern  bank  of  the  Nile  at  Karnak  —  a  part 
of  Homer's  "hundred-gated"  Thebes  —  are  stupen- 
dous ruins  of  ancient  temples.  The  wondering  travel- 
ler is  struck  by  the  sight  of  mighty  pillars  only  lately 
fallen.  His  guide  explains  that  a  recent  overflow  of  the 
river,  rising  to  an  extrordinary  height,  has  reached  and 
undermined  their  ancient  foundations,  and  columns 
which  had  defied  time  for  more  than  thirty  centuries 
toppled  to  destruction.  A  mighty  tide  of  democracy 
is  rising  throughout  the  world,  undermining  the  ancient 
pillars  of  despotism,  and  popular  institutions  both  in 
church  and  state  are  being  built  on  the  ruins  of  autoc- 
racy. In  modern  industry,  however,  growing  organ- 
ization has  meant  combination  with  ever-increasing 
centralization  of  capital  and  of  direction.  The  consoli- 
dation of  railways  into  ever  greater  combinations,  and 
culminating  in  the  Harriman  system  affords  a  striking 
example.  Before  his  death  Mr.  Harriman  virtually 


106  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

dominated  about  75,000  miles  of  railway,  enough  to 
cross  the  continent  twenty-five  times,  and  nearly  four 
times  the  railroad  mileage  of  England.  A  writer1  in  a 
popular  magazine  stated  that  this  railroad  king  exer- 
cised a  taxing  power  almost  as  great  as  that  possessed 
by  any  parliament.  This  certainly  was  taxation  with- 
out representation. 

The  maladjustment  of  our  industrial  system  to  our 
political  system  is  thus  recognized  by  Dr.  Washington 
Gladden:  "Our  industries  are  still  largely  on  an  auto- 
cratic or  feudalistic  basis.  We  have  been  trying  to 
correlate  a  political  democracy  with  an  industrial 
feudalism.  They  do  not  work  well  together.  I  do 
not  think  that  they  will  endure  together.  They  are 
antagonistic  principles.  .  .  .  We  may  say  what 
Lincoln  said  cf  slavery  and  freedom:  the  country  will 
become  eventually  all  democratic  or  all  feudalistic. 
The  workings  ?n  will  lose  their  political  liberty  or  they 
will  gain  their  industrial  liberty."2  Indeed,  without 
the  latter,  the  former  is  of  no  great  value.  Said 
President  Emeritus  Eliot  of  Harvard  University  in 
his  Faneuil  Hall  address,  July  4,  1911:  "Does  not 
American  experience  in  the  nineteenth  century  go  to 
show  that  political  freedom  is  of  limited  value  unless  it 
is  accompanied  by  genuine  social  and  industrial  free- 
dom?" 

In  the  preceding  discussion  it  has  been  shown  that 
the  industrial  revolution  has  brought  men  into  such 
intimate  relations  of  interdependence  as  to  make  unself- 
ish service  the  natural  law  of  organized  society;  that 
selfishness,  which  is  the  accepted  law  of  organized  in- 

'Burton  J.  Hendrick  in  McClure's  for  October,  1909. 
*The  Outlook,  March  18,  1911. 


NEW  PROBLEM  OF  INDUSTRY         107 

dustry,  has  caused  maladjustment  both  of  spirit  and 
form  in  the  new  social  order,  and  is  responsible  for  the 
resulting  industrial  evils,  many  and  great,  which  call 
loudly  for  remedy. 

Organized  capital  and  organized  labour  utterly  fail 
to  recognize  the  real  cause  of  their  differences,  and  the 
principal  measures  of  relief  which  they  propose  serve 
only  to  aggravate  that  cause.  That  is,  their  struggles 
against  each  other  intensify  the  selfishness  of  both. 
Organized  skilled  labour  in  seeking  its  own  interests 
sacrifices  those  of  unorganized  labour  and  those  of 
capital.  Syndicalism  is  so  willing  to  sacrifice  all  other 
interests  to  those  of  unskilled  labour  that  capitalism 
and  unionism'at  the  time  of  the  Lawrence  strike  actually 
forgot  their  old  feud  and  joined  hands  to  fight  their 
common  enemy. 

Socialism  depends  for  its  growth  on  class  conscious- 
ness, and  assiduously  cultivates  class  antagonism. 

Capitalism  is  only  one  of  a  thousand  forms  in  which 
selfishness  expresses  itself.  Socialism  proposes  a  rem- 
edy which  would  remove  that  particular  symptom,  but 
which  sustains  no  relation  to  the  disease. 

Philanthropy,  keenly  alive  to  the  many  social  evils 
which  come  from  the  existing  maladjustment,  has 
formed  many  organizations  to  cope  with  specific  abuses. 
It  has  also  formulated  a  long  legislative  programme  in- 
tended to  compass  needed  reforms.  These  efforts  are 
in  general  most  commendable  and  should  enlist  the 
active  co-operation  of  every  lover  of  his  kind,  but  they 
can  only  mitigate  the  effects  of  selfishness;  they  are 
palliative  rather  than  remedial. 

Not  one  of  the  remedies  proposed  in  any  quarter 
undertakes  to  go  to  the  root  of  industrial  and  social 
evils,  or  even  recognizes  the  existence  of  that  root.  In 


108  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

this  chapter  I  have  attempted  a  diagnosis;  the  remedy 
will  be  considered  in  a  subsequent  chapter.  I  shall  now 
undertake  to  outline  the  natural  results  of  continuing 
the  present  policy  of  ignoring  the  cause  of  existing 
industrial  and  social  ills. 


III.   SHADOWS  OF  COMING  EVENTS 

If  the  existing  spirit  of  selfishness  continues  to 
dominate  industry,  three  results  may  be  expected  to 
follow. 

1.  Increasing  production  without  corresponding 
distribution  will  aggravate  existing  popular  discon- 
tent. 

The  Hon.  Carroll  D.  Wright  is  quoted  as  saying  that 
"two  hours  and  fifteen  minutes  daily  work  by  each 
able-bodied  man,  if  systematically  applied,  would 
produce  all  the  food,  clothing  and  shelter  that  people 
need."  This,  of  course,  assumes  the  use  of  the  modern 
instruments  of  production.  Many  men  work  four  and 
five  times  that  number  of  hours,  and  do  not  receive 
enough  to  support  a  family  in  decency.  The  applica- 
tion of  steam  has  enormously  increased  wealth,  but 
there  has  been  no  corresponding  increase  in  the 
purchasing  power  of  wages.  The  problem  of  pro- 
duction has  been  solved,  but  that  of  distribution 
remains  to  keep  the  workmgman  sore  under  a  sense 
of  injustice. 

Sir  Robert  Giffen  shows  that  while  population  hi 
Great  Britain  increases  only  l%o  per  cent,  per  annum, 
wealth  increases  3  per  cent.  This  fact,  however,  has 
not  prevented  the  rapid  increase  of  popular  discontent 
and  its  effective  expression  at  the  polls.  Nor  has  the 
rapid  increase  of  national  wealth  made  contented  and 


NEW  PROBLEM  OF  INDUSTRY         109 

happy  the  800,000  people  in  London  who  go  habitually 
hungry. J 

Some  years  ago  Edward  Atkinson  declared  it  to  be 
"a  well-established  fact  that  about  90  per  cent,  of  the 
community  expend  one  half  of  their  income  or  more  for 
food."  When  rent  has  been  paid,  or  taxes,  insurance, 
and  repairs  have  been  provided  for,  together  with  cloth- 
ing, fuel,  and  medicines,  how  much  remains  for  the 
higher  nature?  "Man  doth  not  live  by  bread  only." 
"The  life  is  more  than  meat."  I  can  easily  believe 
that  since  Mr.  Atkinson's  statement  was  made,  some 
eighteen  years  ago,  the  figures  have  changed  some- 
what. But  if  only  one  tenth  of  the  population 
(9,000,000)  were  living  on  this  low  physical  plane,  it 
would  be  a  serious  matter;  and  if  a  large  majority  of 
the  people  are  thus  living,  there  is  something  radically 
wrong.  To  tell  them  that  since  1850  our  per  capita 
wealth  has  increased  four  and  a  half-fold  and  our 
national  wealth  seventeenfold  only  deepens  their 
conviction  that  they  are  not  getting  their  fair  share. 

It  will  be  shown  in  the  following  chapter  that  the 
aggregate  increase  of  wealth  during  the  next  half  cen- 
tury will  undoubtedly  be  vastly  greater  than  during 
the  past  fifty  years.  If  labour  is  paid  only  what  the 
"iron  law"  dictates  (that  is  the  law  of  selfishness  as 
administered  by  capital)  we  may  be  assured  that  popu- 
lar discontent  will  increase  as  rapidly  as  wealth. 

Why  not  profit  by  past  experience?  There  is  every 
reason  to  expect  that  like  causes  under  like  conditions 
will  produce  like  results.  Prof.  John  R.  Commons 
points  out  a  certain  recurring  cycle  in  our  economic 
history  which  passes  from  stage  to  stage  with  regular 

'These  figures  are  the  result  of  statistics  carefully  gathered  by 
social  settlement  workers  in  the  East  End  of  London. 


110  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

and  instructive  sequences.  First,  rising  prices  and 
profits  with  factories  running  over  time;  then  increased 
cost  of  living  and  longer  hours  impel  workmen  to  de- 
mand higher  wages  and  reduced  hours.  Strikes  are 
at  first  successful  and  labour  unions  grow;  then  em- 
ployers begin  their  counter-organization,  and  the 
courts  are  appealed  to.  Sooner  or  later  the  unions  are 
defeated.  Competition  brings  prices  down;  depression 
ensues  with  its  widespread  unemployment;  and  then 
follows  the  period  of  social  or  political  agitation,  and 
all  sorts  of  isms  find  a  quick  soil.  Says  Professor 
Commons:  "This  cycle  has  been  so  consistently  re- 
peated, although  with  varying  shades  and  details, 
that  it  has  compelled  recognition."1  This  cycle  will 
no  doubt  continue  to  recur  so  long  as  selfishness  is 
considered  the  natural  law  of  the  industrial  world  and 
makes  mutual  enemies  of  employers  and  employees, 
unless,  indeed,  in  some  period  of  unequalled  depression 
and  distress  there  occurs  a  convulsion  which  shatters 
our  industrial  system. 

There  is  a  popular  discontent  hi  Europe  which  has 
not  been  equalled  since  the  revolution  of  1848.  Indeed 
there  is  a  great  world  ferment  as  wide  as  modern  civili- 
zation and  as  deep  as  the  sense  of  injustice  which  has 
taken  possession  of  workingmen  —  a  situation  which 
can  be  ignored  only  at  the  peril  of  society.  Judge 
Gary,  at  a  public  dinner,  referring  to  this  "sinister  feel- 
ing of  unrest  throughout  the  world,"  remarked:  "I 
say  to  you  that  things  are  being  said  and  printed  similar 
to  the  incendiary  speeches  which  aroused  the  peasants 
of  France  and  caused  the  French  revolution.  Unless 
something  is  done  the  spark  will  burst  into  a  flame." 

'"Documentary  History'of  American  Industrial  Society."  Intro- 
duction to  Vols.  V  and  VI,  p.  19. 


NEW  PROBLEM  OF  INDUSTRY         111 

Agitation  was  not  the  "cause"  of  the  French  Revolu- 
tion. Incendiary  utterances  might  be  the  occasion, 
but  could  not  possibly  be  the  cause  of  a  nation-wide 
or  world-wide  uprising.  A  torch  never  sets  anything 
on  fire  where  there  is  nothing  inflammable.  Some 
millions  of  prosperous  and  contented  citizens  do  not 
extemporize  "a  sinister  feeling  of  unrest  throughout 
the  world"  simply  to  oblige  fanatical  agitators.  World- 
wide movements  spring  from  world-wide  conditions 
and  causes. 

2.  Again,  if  the  existing  spirit  of  selfishness  continues 
to  dominate  industry,  increasing  manufactures  and 
inventions  will  at  length  drive  the  world  into  an  im- 
passe. 

There  is  a  sort  of  mechanical  Malthusianism  which  is 
a  much  greater  menace  to  society  than  the  much  dis- 
cussed doctrine  of  Malthus,  but  which  so  far  as  I  know 
has  never  been  formulated,  nor  even  recognized.  I  refer 
to  the  fact  that  so  long  as  industry  is  inspired  by  selfish 
competition  machinery  will  inevitably  tend  to  increase 
more  rapidly  than  population,  or  the  demands  of  a 
rising  standard  of  living,  or  both  together;  which,  unless 
industry  becomes  unselfish,  will  create  all  the  misery 
of  widespread  and  increasing  unemployment. 

Machinery  might  be  employed  to  shorten  the  hours 
of  labour,  to  lighten  the  burdens  of  toilers,  and  to  reduce 
the  cost  of  living.  If  such  were  its  actual  use,  it  would 
be  an  unmixed  blessing.  But  as  a  matter  of  fact 
labour-saving  devices  are  introduced  not  for  the  sake  of 
the  workmen,  nor  for  that  of  the  purchasing  public, 
but  in  order  to  increase  the  profits  of  the  business.  It 
is  quite  true  that  machinery  has  shortened  the  hours 
of  labour,  has  increased  wages,  and  in  many  instances 
has  reduced  prices,  but  these  results  were  incidental. 


112  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

The  object  of  the  management  in  installing  more  effec- 
tive machinery  is  not  to  make  men  but  to  make  money. 
Let  us  glance  at  some  of  the  ulterior  results  of  this 
policy. 

Under  existing  conditions  every  competitor  for  the 
market  takes  into  consideration  not  the  public  welfare, 
nor  even  the  good  of  the  industry  as  a  whole,  but  only 
his  own  private  interests.  If  there  is  greater  produc- 
tion than  the  market  demands,  sales  become  slow; 
competition  grows  sharper  and  prices  fall.  The  only 
way  to  get  the  market  is  to  undersell  competitors; 
hence  a  powerful  incentive  to  reduce  the  cost  of  pro- 
duction to  a  minimum.  In  addition  to  the  economies 
which  are  possible  to  all  manufacturers  there  are  two 
advantages  which  are  gamed  by  only  a  part  of  them. 
One  is  the  cheaper  production  which  comes  from  en- 
larging the  plant  and  increasing  the  output,  the  other  is 
derived  from  the  invention  of  more  effective  machinery. 
Thus  industrial  depression,  contrary  to  what  might  be 
expected,  operates  as  a  powerful  stimulus  to  the  pro- 
duction of  machinery,  and  especially  to  the  invention 
of  that  which  will  have  greater  labour-displacing  power. 
Every  financial  panic  is  sure  to  be  followed  by  a  large 
number  of  labour-saving  inventions. 

Another  stimulus  to  the  increase  of  machinery  is  the 
strike.  Every  time  an  employer  is  thus  embarrassed 
he  has  an  added  incentive  to  procure  iron  and  steel 
workers  which  never  throw  up  their  job.  Strikes,  there- 
fore, stimulate  the  invention  of  automatic  machines. 
One  boy  now  produces  wire  screening  for  which  the 
manufacturer  was  formerly  dependent  on  200  men. 

Under  these  influences  the  products  of  machinery 
increase  much  more  rapidly  than  population.  During 
the  last  half  of  the  nineteenth  century  our  population 


NEW  PROBLEM  OF  INDUSTRY         113 

increased  threefold,  while  our  manufactured  products 
increased  from  $1,019,000,000  in  1850  to  $13,039,000,000 
in  1900.  In  like  manner  while  the  population  of 
Europe  increased  50  per  cent,  her  manufactures  in- 
creased 200  per  cent.  A  part  of  the  increasing  surplus 
is  absorbed  by  the  rising  standard  of  living,  but  such  a 
rise,  which  involves  a  change  of  national  habits,  is 
necessarily  slow,  as  is  also  the  growth  of  population, 
while  the  multiplying  of  machinery  or  its  increased 
effectiveness  not  unfrequently  doubles  the  output  of  a 
given  product  in  a  single  decade.  We  may  judge  of 
the  increase  of  machinery  in  France  from  the  fact  that 
the  horsepower  of  her  steam-engines  in  fifteen  years 
(1891-1906)  increased  over  600  per  cent,  while  her 
population  was  practically  stationary. 

With  machine  products  increasing  two  or  three  or 
four  times  as  fast  as  home  consumption,  enlarging 
foreign  markets  becomes  a  vital  necessity.  Great 
Britain,  Germany,  France,  and  the  United  States  are 
by  far  the  greatest  manufacturing  nations  of  the  world, 
and  they  have  all  just  about  doubled  their  manu- 
factured exports  during  the  past  quarter  of  a  century 
—  England  and  France  a  little  less,  Germany  and  the 
United  States  considerably  more.  These  are  the  nations 
which  have  most  enlarged  their  colonial  possessions 
during  that  period;  and  these  same  nations  have  the 
four  greatest  navies  in  the  world.  Japan,  Russia, 
and  Italy  are  all  interested  in  becoming  great  manufac- 
turing peoples,  they  are  also  much  interested  in  territorial 
expansion,  and  they  rank  next  as  naval  powers. 

This  threefold  interest  in  manufactures,  colonial 
expansion,  and  battleships  is  not  a  mere  coincidence 
but  a  logical  sequence.  Great  Britain  got  the  start  of 
the  rest  of  the  world,  and  for  some  generations  she  was 


114  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

the  one  great  manufacturing  power,  the  one  great 
colonial  power  and  the  one  great  naval  power.  It  was 
not  until  after  Germany  and  France  became  great 
manufacturing  nations  that  the  one  saw  the  importance 
of  a  "Greater  Germany"  and  the  other  the  necessity 
of  a  "Greater  France."  It  was  under  similar  condi- 
tions that  the  United  States  entered  on  oversea  expan- 
sion. It  is  multiplying  machinery  —  this  mechanical 
Malthusianism  —  which  within  the  past  generation 
has  driven  European  Powers  to  seize  5,000,000  square 
miles  in  tropical  and  subtropical  zones  —  an  area 
nearly  one  half  greater  than  the  whole  continent  of 
Europe.  There  must  be  a  colonial  outlet  for  the  prod- 
uct of  machinery  which  is  forever  grinding  its  increas- 
ing grist.  And  then,  of  course,  there  must  be  a  navy 
capable  of  protecting  this  oversea  commerce  which  has 
become  essential  to  the  very  life  of  the  nation;  hence 
the  mad  race  which  the  manufacturing  nations  are 
running  in  naval  construction.  These  nations  are 
willing  to  build  navies  at  any  cost  of  money  and  then 
fight  at  any  cost  of  life  because  they  see  that  they  must 
sell  their  increasing  surplus  or  suffer  the  horrors  of 
unemployment,  starvation,  and  riot. 

The  pith  of  my  contention  is  that  while  the  produc- 
tion of  machinery  can  and  does  respond  to  the  increas- 
ing demands  of  enlarging  markets,  it  cannot,  under 
selfish  competition,  be  limited  to  that  demand;  nor, 
indeed,  can  its  increase  be  stopped  when  demand  ceases 
to  increase  and  begins  to  shrink.  There  is,  therefore, 
always  a  tendency  for  machine-made  products  to  in- 
crease faster  than  home  consumption.  Said  the  Hon. 
Carroll  D.  Wright:  "It  is  incontrovertible  that  the 
present  manufacturing  and  mechanical  plant  of  the 
United  States  is  greater  —  far  greater  —  than  is 


NEW  PROBLEM  OF  INDUSTRY         115 

needed  to  supply  the  demand;  yet  it  is  constantly 
being  enlarged,  and  there  is  no  way  of  preventing  the  en- 
largement." l  As  yet  there  are  only  four  great  machine- 
using  nations,  and  they  are  by  far  richer  than  any 
others.  Wherever  manufactured  products  go  (and 
where  are  they  not  going?)  there  is  a  desire  awakened 
on  the  part  of  the  people  to  increase  their  wealth  by 
manufacturing  for  themselves.  Japan's  manufactured 
exports  have  increased  eightfold  in  a  quarter  of  a  cen- 
tury. China  has  her  city  whose  tall  chimneys  remind 
one  of  Pittsburgh.  India  is  establishing  factories 
equipped  with  the  best  machinery.  Manufacturing 
has  begun  hi  South  America,  and  will  receive  a  power- 
ful impulse  from  the  isthmian  canal.  The  agricultural 
peoples  of  Europe,  South  Africa,  Australia,  and  Canada 
are  all  beginning  to  manufacture.  If  selfish  competi- 
tion continues  to  be  the  accepted  law  of  industry,  the 
time  will  doubtless  come  when  it  can  be  said  of  each 
one  of  these  peoples,  "Its  manufacturing  plant  is  far 
greater  than  is  needed  to  supply  the  demand  yet  it  is 
constantly  being  enlarged,  and  there  is  no  way  of  pre- 
venting the  enlargement."  These  peoples  will  begin 
manufacturing  to  supply  the  home  demand,  precisely 
as  we,  the  French  and  the  Germans  did.  But  they 
cannot  stop  when  the  home  demand  is  supplied. 

When  in  all  of  these  countries  machine  products  are 
increasing  two  or  three  times  as  fast  as  home  consump- 
tion what  will  happen?  What  will  men  do  with  a 
world  surplus?  Is  it  not  evident  that  if  selfishness  is 
permitted  to  control  industry,  it  will  ultimately  make 
of  machinery  such  a  monster  as  was  created  by  Frank- 
enstein? 

3.  Again,  if  the  spirit  of  selfishness  continues  to 

*The  Forum,  February,  1898,  p.  671. 


116  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

animate  Industry,  strikes  will  probably  increase  in 
number,  extent  and  destructiveness. 

Capital  and  labour  are  each  struggling  to  control 
industry  in  its  own  interest.  We  have  seen  that  under 
normal  conditions  those  interests  are  common  but 
under  existing  conditions  they  are  opposed.  It  has 
been  shown  that  in  organized  industry,  under  the  in- 
fluence of  selfish  competition,  capital  naturally  de- 
velops the  autocratic  spirit,  while  labour  by  an  equally 
natural  process  develops  the  democratic  spirit.  Of 
course  in  the  close  relations  of  organized  industry  these 
two  opposing  spirits  must  inevitably  come  into  conflict. 

The  increasing  antagonism  between  capital  and 
labour  is  shown  by  the  rapidly  increasing  number  of 
strikes  during  the  past  generation.  From  1881  to 
1885  the  average  number  of  strikes  in  the  United 
States  annually  was  498.  From  1901  to  1905  (the  latest 
published  statistics)  the  average  number  annually  was 
2,792.  While  the  population  increased  about  50  per 
cent,  and  manufacturing  establishments  doubled,  the 
number  of  strikes  increased  fivefold. 

Doubtless  men  will  some  day  look  back  on  the  strike 
as  a  singularly  crude  and  barbarous  resort  for  rational 
beings,  but  there  is  little  reason  to  expect  that  a  ten- 
dency will  weaken  so  long  as  its  causes  are  strengthen- 
ing. A  developing  class  consciousness  together  with 
increasing  mutual  suspicion  and  antagonism  is  pre- 
paring the  way  for  a  new  and  important  evolution  in 
the  industrial  situation.  The  fact  that  the  class  of 
workingmen  is  constantly  being  recruited  from  South- 
ern and  Southeastern  Europe,  while  the  capitalistic 
class  is  almost  wholly  composed  of  Americans  or  of 
foreigners  who  have  been  well  Americanized,  serves 
to  estrange  the  two  classes  more  and  more,  and  to 


NEW  PROBLEM  OF  INDUSTRY         117 

interpose  differences  of  race,  language,  and  often  of 
religion,  as  added  obstacles  to  mutual  understanding 
and  friendly  relations,  thus  further  preparing  the  way 
for  a  change  which  is  already  in  sight. 

One  of  the  most  important  advantages  heretofore 
enjoyed  by  capital  in  its  struggle  with  labour  is  that 
the  latter  has  been  divided  into  two  camps  hostile  to 
each  other  —  organized  and  unorganized  labour.  In- 
deed, quite  as  often  as  otherwise,  unorganized  labour  has 
been  the  ally  of  capital;  and  when  strikes  have  been 
lost  by  organized  labour  defeat  has  generally  been 
due  to  unorganized  labour.  The  shocking  series  of  101 
dynamite  explosions  in  seventeen  different  states,  in- 
volving the  sacrifice  of  more  than  100  lives  and  the 
destruction  of  several  million  dollars'  worth  of  property, 
culminating  in  the  wrecking  of  the  Los  Angeles  Times 
building  and  the  death  of  twenty-one  persons,  was 
aimed  quite  as  much  at  unorganized  labour  as  at  capital. 

The  trade  union  has  been  dominated  by  the  skilled 
man.  It  has  been  comparatively  easy  for  skilled  work- 
men to  organize  and  greatly  to  improve  their  condition 
thereby.  The  more  skilled  their  work,  the  more  neces- 
sary have  they  been  to  their  employers,  and  the  more 
easily  have  they  secured  their  demands,  enforced  by 
effective  organization.  The  trades  unions,  with  the 
exception  of  rare  and  rather  disastrous  excursions  into 
politics,  have  confined  themselves  generally  to  gaming 
larger  wages  and  shorter  hours.  The  unions  have  con- 
cerned themselves  much  more  with  the  interests  of  their 
respective  trades  than  with  the  great  labour  problem  as 
a  whole. 

This  problem,  in  its  many  aspects  and  wide  relations, 
is  becoming  far  more  the  concern  of  unskilled  than  of 
skilled  labour,  partly  because  the  former  class  is  much 


118  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

the  larger  and  is  constantly  growing  under  the  in- 
fluence of  invention.  Economists  have  assured  us 
that  while  the  introduction  of  machinery  temporarily 
displaces  labour  it  ultimately  creates  more  labour  than 
it  at  first  displaces.  This  opinion  was  based  on  the 
experience  of  Great  Britain  when  she  was  the  workshop 
of  the  world  and  had  a  practically  unlimited  market; 
but  the  situation  radically  changed  when  other  nations 
became  manufacturing  competitors.  It  has  been 
demonstrated  that  under  certain  conditions  machinery 
does  displace  vastly  more  labour  than  it  creates;  and, 
again,  machinery  which  costs  many  men  their  employ- 
ment often  creates  no  demand  whatever  for  labour 
except  that  involved  in  its  own  construction,  which  in 
comparison  is  negligible.  In  one  of  the  great  fac- 
tories of  Chicago  a  mechanic  invented  a  lathe  attach- 
ment which  increased  the  effectiveness  of  the  workman 
twelvefold,  and  as  a  result  eleven  out  of  every  twelve 
workmen  in  that  department  lost  their  job.  It  was 
the  irony  of  fate  that  the  inventor  himself  was  one  of 
the  victims  of  the  new  economy.  He  got  nothing 
for  his  invention,  and  he  was  too  old  to  learn  a  new 
trade,  so  that  his  ingenuity  which  saved  the  company 
a  fortune  in  wages  reduced  him  to  literal  beggary. 
This  illustrates  the  inevitable  result  of  a  large  propor- 
tion of  inventions  under  the  existing  selfish  system. 
Nearly  all  great  manufacturing  enterprises  have  various 
departments,  each  of  which  produces  one  part  of  the 
entire  product,  or  performs  some  one  process.  All  of 
these  departments  must  of  course  work  in  harmony; 
one  cannot  run  ahead  of  the  others.  When,  therefore, 
an  invention  in  one  department  multiplies  the  effec- 
tiveness of  the  workman,  the  inevitable  result  is  not 
to  increase  the  output  of  that  department  but  to  reduce 


NEW  PROBLEM  OF  INDUSTRY         119 

the  working  force.  There  is  a  vast  number  of  such 
inventions  which  do  not  increase  the  general  product, 
thus  stimulating  demand  and  ultimately  creating  more 
labour  to  meet  it,  but  simply  throw  men  out  of  em- 
ployment. 

Massachusetts  statistics  show  that  only  a  very  small 
proportion  of  men  thrown  out  of  one  trade  take  up  an- 
other. They  are  either  too  old  or  too  discouraged  to 
acquire  new  skill  which  may  be  rendered  useless  any 
day  by  a  new  invention.  They  simply  drop  into  the 
great  and  increasing  army  of  the  unskilled,  and  help 
to  swell  the  existing  volume  of  discontent. 

Machinery  enables  the  unskilled  workman  to  sup- 
plant the  skilled  precisely  as  steam  power  discounts 
the  strength  of  the  man  and  makes  the  woman  and 
child  his  successful  rivals.  Machinery  is  becoming 
more  and  more  automatic.  Once  the  tool  was  the 
implement  of  the  man  who  did  the  work;  now  the  man 
is  the  attendant  of  the  machine  which  does  the  work. 
Once  there  was  one  weaver  to  each  loom;  now  one  man 
attends  fifteen,  twenty-five,  thirty,  and  in  rare  instances 
even  forty  different  Northrop  looms;  and  often  hun- 
dreds of  these  looms  are  kept  running  unattended 
during  the  noon  hour.  The  skill  of  a  single  inventor 
renders  useless  that  of  hundreds  of  thousands  of  opera- 
tives. Here  is  an  automatic  knitting  machine,  which 
with  no  one  near  shapes  the  sock,  at  the  heel  substi- 
tutes white  yarn  for  blue,  which  it  does  again  at  the 
toe,  narrows  it  off,  cuts  the  white  yarn,  lays  down  the 
sock,  and  begins  another  with  blue  yarn,  completing  a 
pair  in  ten  minutes.  One  boy  keeps  twenty  machines 
oiled  and  supplied  with  yarn,  and  these  twenty  ma- 
chines produce  over  1,000  pairs  of  socks  a  day. 

Of  course  unskilled  work  commands  lower  wages, 


120  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

which  are  less  equal  to  the  support  of  a  family;  hence 
wife  and  children  are  forced  to  become  wage- workers, 
and  the  unskilled  workman  finds  himself  directly  in- 
volved in  phases  of  the  labour  problem  which  perhaps 
do  not  personally  affect  the  skilled  workman.  It  is 
the  unskilled  worker,  therefore,  who  is  more  likely  to 
be  thoroughly  discontented  with  the  whole  labour 
situation  and  to  become  an  agitator  or  a  revolutionist. 

Moreover,  machinery  and  the  minute  subdivision 
of  labour  have  an  important  influence  hi  shaping 
character.  The  "all  around"  mechanic  is  far  more 
independent;  much  more  likely  to  develop  self-reliance 
and  initiative.  With  the  increasing  subdivision  of 
labour,  work  is  simplified  until  it  often  becomes  but  a 
single  process  or  movement.  The  workman  is  per- 
petually reminded  of  his  dependence  on  others  with 
whom  he  is  compelled  to  co-operate.  He  becomes 
deeply  conscious  of  the  solidarity  of  industry,  and  more 
readily  unites  with  his  comrades  for  common  action. 

Of  course  unorganized  labour  is  helpless;  and  this  is 
especially  true  of  unskilled  labour.  Increasing  efforts, 
therefore,  are  being  made  to  include  all  labour  in  its 
organized  ranks  so  as  to  present  a  united  front  to  or- 
ganized capital.  With  the  increasing  importance  of 
unskilled  labour  in  those  ranks  it  is  evident  that  the 
policy  of  labour  in  the  industrial  struggle  is  destined 
to  be  controlled  more  and  more  by  the  unskilled  ele- 
ment. 

The  process  which  has  just  been  briefly  sketched  has 
created  a  new  situation  of  momentous  possibilities, 
and  has  prepared  the  way  for  a  new  labour  movement 
which  is  already  attracting  anxious  attention  both  in 
Europe  and  America. 

Syndicalism,  or  the  "I.  W.  W."  (the  Industrial  Work- 


NEW  PROBLEM  OF  INDUSTRY         121 

ers  of  the  World)  is  a  social  philosophy  which  pro- 
poses a  new  solution  of  the  labour  problem.  While 
socialism  calls  for  the  public  ownership  of  all  means  of 
production  and  of  distribution,  syndicalism  demands 
that  labour  take  over  the  ownership  and  direction  of 
our  entire  industrial  system  —  finance,  transportation, 
factories,  mines  and  all.  Said  one  of  its  advocates: 
"We  are  doing  the  real  work  now,  only  we  get  one 
seventh  of  what  we  produce.  We  propose  to  have 
seven  sevenths." 

Bent  on  social  revolution  syndicalists  are  impatient 
of  the  slow  methods  of  legislation.  Their  weapon  is  the 
"general  strike."  Says  the  London  Times:  "The 
general  strike  of  syndicalism  is  not  a  means  of  securing 
higher  wages.  It  is  a  revolutionary  act.  ...  It 
aims  at  the  complete  overthrow  of  the  existing  order 
by  the  cessation  of  all  activity.  The  manual  workers 
stop  work,  society  comes  to  a  standstill,  food  is  soon 
exhausted,  there  is  no  public  lighting  or  conveyance, 
plundering  and  disorder  begin,  the  soldiers  are  called 
out  but  refuse  to  turn  against  the  rioters,  and  lo!  the 
revolution  is  accomplished.  Then  the  trade  unions 
step  in,  take  over  the  economic  assets  of  the  nation, 
reorganize  them,  and  there  you  are." 

Syndicalism  started  in  Paris  in  1895  and  received  a 
strong  impetus  seven  years  later.  It  has  now  become 
powerful  in  France,  and  for  nearly  ten  years  its  in- 
fluence has  been  felt  in  Spam,  Russia,  Holland,  and 
Sweden.  The  general  strike  has  been  attempted  in 
various  countries  with  sufficient  success  to  cause  not  a 
little  distress  on  the  part  of  workingmen's  families, 
which  are  the  first  to  suffer,  and  not  a  little  fear  on  the 
part  of  the  general  public.  In  1905  the  whole  struc- 
ture of  Russian  society  was  shaken  by  the  "universal 


122  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

strike."  There  was  a  railway  tie-up  all  over  Russia, 
and  by  reason  of  sympathetic  strikes  everywhere  in- 
dustrial and  commercial  life  came  to  a  standstill.  A 
correspondent  of  the  London  Daily  Mail  wrote:  "If 
the  strike  lasts,  all  is  over.  We  shall  drown  in  a  red 
torrent."  There  was  a  "general  strike"  proclaimed  in 
Sweden  which  before  the  end  came  cost  innumerable 
tragedies  hi  the  homes  of  the  poor.  A  like  attempt  to 
paralyze  society  was  made  hi  France,  which  was  over- 
come by  M.  Briand,  but  only  after  it  had  been  enor- 
mously costly.  A  year  later  a  similar  undertaking  was 
made  in  Great  Britain.  Early  hi  1912  the  coal  strike 
well  nigh  prostrated  British  industry  for  the  time  being. 
Press  dispatches  stated,  "The  magnitude  of  the  strike 
is  almost  inconceivable.  It  has  affected  hi  a  direct 
way,  counting  only  the  miners  and  the  other  men 
thrown  out  of  work  with  their  families,  more  than 
4,000,000  persons.  In  other  respects  it  has  paralyzed 
practically  the  whole  life  of  the  nation.  Prices  of  food 
have  gone  up,  fuel  is  virtually  unattainable,  railroads 
have  curtailed  their  services,  shipping  has  been  held 
up,  and  every  branch  of  industry  stopped  to  a  greater 
or  less  extent." 

These  attempts  suggest  what  tremendous  possibil- 
ities lie  in  this  sort  of  "masterly  inactivity."  With 
the  increasing  subdivision  of  labour  and  the  further 
organization  of  national  and  world  industry  the  inter- 
dependence of  men  and  of  nations  becomes  ever 
greater,  and  the  possible  evil  which  may  be  inflicted 
by  a  general  strike  is  correspondingly  enhanced. 

Moreover,  the  feasibility  of  such  a  strike  is  con- 
stantly increasing.  As  yet  men  are  mere  tyros  in 
organization.  Industry  as  now  organized  is  a  great 
school  in  which  workingmen  are  being  daily  drilled  hi 


NEW  PROBLEM  OF  INDUSTRY         123 

concerted  action;  and  as  the  solidarity  of  labour  grows, 
and  class  antipathy  deepens,  the  day  approaches,  when 
the  general  strike  can  disorganize  society  and  inau- 
gurate anarchy. 

Failure  will  attend  premature  efforts  here  as  in 
Europe,  and  the  strikers  will  be  the  greatest  sufferers, 
which  will  further  embitter  the  industrial  class  against 
the  capitalistic  class,  and  increase  the  score  which  the 
former  will  remember  against  the  final  day  of  reckoning. 

Many  think  the  strikers  cannot  hold  out  long  enough 
to  succeed.  But  national  boundaries  do  not  separate 
workingmen.  They  are  recognizing  common  interests 
and  learning  to  make  common  cause.  Suppose  syndi- 
calism gains  control  of  labour  in  Great  Britain,  France, 
Germany,  and  the  United  States,  what  is  to  prevent 
the  workingmen  of  three  of  these  countries  furnishing 
supplies  to  the  strikers  of  the  fourth  until  labour  has 
won  its  fight  in  each? 

It  is  believed  by  some  that  the  real  origin  of  the 
I.  W.  W.  in  this  country  was  immediately  after  the  end 
of  the  bitter  and  bloody  strike  of  the  miners  in  Colorado 
in  1905.  The  same  men  were  prominent  in  both. 
They  are  now  strong  enough  here  to  sustain  several 
regular  periodicals.  They  appeared  in  strength  at  the 
Paterson,  Lawrence,  and  New  Bedford  strikes. 

The  spirit,  aim,  and  methods  of  the  syndicalists  are 
exhibited  in  the  following  statement,  made  by  the 
national  organizer  at  New  Bedford,  and  reported  by 
Mr.  Bruce  Barton  in  the  Congregationalist.  "We  are 
fighting  a  war;  this  is  merely  a  battle.  .  .  .  Between 
battles  we  make  the  boss  pay  the  bills.  We  go  back  to 
work.  Of  course  we  don't  have  to  be  as  careful  as  we 
were  before.  Perhaps  the  cloth  we  turn  out  won't  be 
perfect  always,  and  sometimes  a  bolt  will  seem  to  get 


124  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

slashed  with  a  knife,  and  occasionally  a  monkey 
wrench  will  drop  into  a  loom,  or  a  piece  of  shafting  will 
fall,  or  a  steam  pipe  will  get  plugged  up,  or  the  electric 
wires  will  get  short  circuited.  Maybe  a  fire  might 
break  out  in  one  of  the  mills.  It's  all  part  of  the  war. 
The  boss  practises  the  same  tactics  when  he  puts 
adulterated  food  on  the  market  for  us  workers,  or  sells 
us  his  rotten  products  at  high  prices.  Between  capital 
and  labour  there  is  a  war;  and  capital  has  no  rights 
which  labour  is  bound  to  respect.  We  produce  every- 
thing; we  mean  to  have  everything.  ...  Of 
course  the  owners  hate  us;  of  course  they'd  like  to  see 
us  hanged.  I  don't  blame  them.  I'd  feel  that  way 
if  I  were  a  capitalist.  It's  because  they  see  that  we  are 
growing  and  realize  that  our  programme  means  their 
extinction  that  they  dread  us  so.  If  they  grant  what 
we're  asking  this  time,  it  only  postpones  the  trouble. 
We'll  go  back  to  work,  but  we  won't  be  satisfied. 
We'll  stay  just  long  enough  to  save  some  money  and 
bring  the  mills  into  their  busy  season  and  then  we'll 
walk  out  again.  .  .  .  Ours  is  a  constant  war,  and 
the  end  of  it  is  the  overturn  of  society  and  the  abolition 
of  the  private  ownership  of  wealth." 

Syndicalism  has  enough  in  common  with  socialism 
to  draw  heavily  from  the  ranks  of  the  latter.  "Its 
tendency,"  says  John  Graham  Brooks,  "is  steadily 
toward  anarchy,  and  it  is  extremely  likely  within  a  few 
years  seriously  to  plague  the  socialist  party,  as  now 
organized,  as  it  will  surely  plague  the  public."1 

How  widespread  and  virulent  this  industrial  pesti- 
lence becomes  will  depend  on  the  extent  to  which  the 
existing  sefish  competition  prepares  the  way  for  it. 
It  has  been  shown  (1)  that  increasing  production  with- 

lTke  Survey,  April  6,  1912,  p.  80. 


NEW  PROBLEM  OF  INDUSTRY         125 

out  corresponding  distribution  would  stimulate  the 
deep-seated  and  growing  resentment  against  the  capi- 
talistic class;  it  has  been  shown  (2)  that  under  selfish 
competition  machinery  would  be  produced  far  beyond 
the  needs  of  the  world,  preparing  conditions  for  the 
general  prostration  of  industry ;  and  further  it  has  been 
shown  (3)  that  increasing  machinery,  used  not  for  the 
service  of  society  but  for  the  swelling  of  dividends,  is 
so  transforming  both  the  conditions  of  work  and  work- 
ingmen  themselves  as  to  inaugurate,  without  doubt,  a 
labour  "war,"  with  possibilites  of  incalculable  disorder 
and  distress. 

There  is  already  sufficient  bitterness  of  class  feeling 
to  make  the  situation  serious.  It  is  not  necessary  to 
incite  the  frenzy  of  the  French  Revolution,  condensed 
into  that  ferocious  word  of  Diderot's  that  "the  en- 
trails of  the  last  priest  should  serve  as  halter  to  the 
last  king."  If  there  is  lacking  that  insanity  of  class 
hatred  which  was  the  dynamite  of  the  great  French 
explosion,  modern  science  has  placed  ready  to  the 
hand  of  every  enemy  of  society  instruments  of  destruc- 
tion which  belittle  those  of  every  other  age. 

Surely  the  selfish  philosophy  of  industry  is  no  longer 
workable.  Selfishness  is  not  only  unsocial  but  anti- 
social It  is  disintegrative.  Hence  the  more  multi- 
plied and  far  reaching,  the  more  complex  and  delicate 
human  relations  are,  the  more  destructive  does  selfish- 
ness become.  "Every  man  for  himself"  in  the  midst 
of  the  new  social  order  is  an  anachronism.  It  is  the 
spirit  of  the  eighteenth  century  animating  the  body  of 
the  twentieth.  It  is  the  tiger  of  the  jungle  let  loose  in 
the  busy  marts  of  men. 


CHAPTER  VI 
THE  NEW  PROBLEM  OP  WEALTH 

AN  Imperial  Chinese  Commissioner  said  to  me  a 
few  years  ago  that  the  government  of  New  York  City 
collected  from  its  (then)  less  than  4,000,000  inhabi- 
tants larger  revenues  than  the  imperial  government 
of  China  collected  from  its  400,000,000  people.  Our 
greater  wealth  is  certainly  not  due  to  superior  industry 
or  frugality.  The  Chinese  toil  almost  incessantly,  and 
their  standard  of  living  is  probably  not  one  twentieth 
as  high  as  ours;  but  for  a  century  the  West  has  com- 
manded methods  of  producing  wealth  of  which  the 
East,  until  recently,  has  known  nothing. 

Poverty  has  been  the  great  economic  problem  of  the 
past;  wealth  will  be  the  greater  economic  problem  of 
the  future.  Let  us  look  at  the  several  elements  of  the 
problem. 

I.    THE   NEW   CREATION    OF   WEALTH 

Nature  is  given  to  man  and  he  is  commanded  to 
"subdue"  it.  Here  are  the  several  elements  out  of 
which  wealth  is  created,  viz.,  human  want,  raw  material, 
and  the  power  which  subdues  it  to  human  use.  There 
can  be  no  wealth  where  there  are  no  wants.  Slowly  the 
wants  of  primitive  man  increased  and  impelled  him  to 
adapt  nature's  materials  to  satisfy  them.  Gradually 
he  discovered  an  increasing  number  of  uses  which  could 
be  made  of  vegetable,  animal,  and  mineral  for  food, 

126 


127 

clothing,  shelter,  weapons,  and  the  like.  With  mul- 
tiplying wants  came  civilization,  and  in  nature's 
storehouse  numberless  raw  materials  were  found  which 
increasing  ingenuity  and  skill  transformed  into  wealth. 
Thus  for  many  tens  of  thousands  of  years  man's 
desire  for  wealth  grew  and  his  knowledge  of  raw  ma- 
terials grew,  but  his  power  —  that  of  his  muscles  —  by 
which  he  transformed  these  materials  into  articles  of 
use  remained  the  same.  Then,  late  in  the  history  of 
the  race,  only  four  generations  ago,  came  a  sudden 
and  profoundly  important  change,  viz.: 

1.  The  substituting  of  mechanical  for  vital  power. 
For  thousands  of  years  the  only  way  to  multiply  the 

product  was  to  multiply  the  number  of  muscles  which 
furnished  the  power,  which  of  course  correspondingly 
multiplied  the  number  of  mouths;  and  as  one  set  of 
muscles  could  produce  but  little  more  than  their  owner 
and  those  dependent  on  him  ought  to  consume  it  was 
impossible  for  the  world  to  become  rich.  In  order  to 
double  the  product  it  was  necessary  to  double  the 
number  of  those  who  must  share  the  product. 

When,  however,  mechanical  power  was  substituted 
for  vital,  when  it  became  possible  to  rely  on  the  steam- 
engine  instead  of  the  muscles  of  man  or  beast,  power 
could  be  multiplied  tenfold  or  a  hundredfold  without 
increasing  the  number  of  mouths  by  one.  That  is,  it 
now  became  possible  to  increase  power  indefinitely 
without  correspondingly  increasing  the  demands  on 
the  products  of  that  power;  hence  the  new  creation  of 
wealth. 

2.  But  this  is  not  all.     Science  is  enriching  the  world. 
It  is  constantly  increasing  our  knowledge  of  the  earth 
and  its  materials,  and  revealing  unsuspected  sources 
of  wealth.     The  value  of  our  mineral  products  is  well 


128  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

above  $2,000,000,000  a  year.  Some  of  these  minerals 
which  now  add  many  millions  annually  to  our  wealth 
were  either  unknown  or  supposed  to  be  worthless  a  few 
years  ago. 

Thus  with  ever-multiplying  human  wants,  with  the 
possibility  of  unlimited  power,  and  with  science  ever 
finding  new  possible  values  in  the  mineral,  vegetable 
and  animal  world,  there  is  literally  no  limit  to  the  pos- 
sible wealth  of  mankind.  Science,  moreover,  is  not 
only  discovering  new  raw  materials,  but  is  revealing 
new  and  more  economical  methods  of  reducing  them  to 
use.  The  surprising  progress  of  Germany  during  recent 
years  affords  an  excellent  illustration  of  the  creation 
of  wealth  by  the  application  of  science  to  industry. 
Notwithstanding  the  comparative  poverty  of  her 
natural  resources,  things  "made  in  Germany"  are 
finding  their  way  into  the  markets  of  the  world  in 
damaging  competition  with  English  manufactures. 
Doubtless  the  time  will  come  when  the  industries  of 
every  people  will  cease  to  be  conducted  by  rule  of 
thumb  and  become  scientific. 

The  progress  of  material  civilization  consists  very 
largely  in  the  elimination  of  waste  —  wasted  material, 
wasted  power,  wasted  time,  wasted  opportunity. 
Science  confers  on  us  the  touch  of  Midas  by  which  we 
transform  waste  into  wealth.  A  few  years  ago  cotton 
growers  did  not  know  what  to  do  with  the  seed.  They 
threw  it  away.  Its  quantity  clogged  the  streams.  It 
became  a  nuisance.  Now  the  cotton  seed  products 
yield  $70,000,000,  in  a  single  year.  Every  great  factory 
employs  men  who  devote  all  their  time  to  eliminat- 
ing loss  or  transforming  it  into  profit.  There  are 
not  a  few  industries  in  which  the  main  product  is  all 
"velvet,"  as  manufacturers  call  it,  because  the  by- 


NEW  PROBLEM  OF  WEALTH     129 

products,  once  wasted  but  now  utilized,  pay  the  entire 
cost  of  the  manufacture. 

Scientific  management  is  revealing  a  measure  of 
efficiency  the  possibility  of  which  has  heretofore  been 
unsuspected.  The  motions  of  a  bricklayer  hi  laying  a 
single  brick  have  been  reduced  from  eighteen  to  six. 
Of  a  picked  gang  of  men,  each  one,  after  having  been 
scientifically  trained,  handled  forty-seven  and  a  half 
tons  of  pig  iron  per  day  instead  of  twelve  and  a  half 
tons  which  had  been  the  average  rate.  There  are  at 
least  50,000  workmen  in  the  United  States  who  are 
employed  under  the  new  system,  and  who  are  receiving 
from  33  to  100  per  cent,  higher  wages  than  others  of 
the  same  class  where  scientific  management  has  not 
been  introduced,  while  the  output  per  man  has,  on  the 
average,  been  doubled. *  If  the  feeling  of  suspicion  and 
hostility  now  so  common  between  capital  and  labour 
can  be  exchanged  for  active  co-operation,  scientific 
management  promises  largely  to  increase  the  profits 
of  employers,  the  wages  of  workmen,  and  the  wealth  of 
the  nation. 

A  serious  loss  is  that  by  fire,  which  during  the 
past  thirty-three  years  has  aggregated  in  the  United 
States  not  less  than  $5,147,000,000.  During  the  past 
ten  years  the  average  annual  waste  by  fire  has  been 
$227,000,000.  It  can  hardly  be  supposed  that  modem 
science  and  efficiency  will  long  suffer  such  burnt- 
offerings  on  the  altar  of  ignorance  and  carelessness. 

But  our  greatest  and  most  lamentable  waste  is  that 
of  human  life.  The  most  eminent  physicians  tell  us 
that  of  every  hundred  deaths  forty-two  are  unneces- 
sary. Professor  Fisher  of  Yale,  considering  only  the 
economic  aspect  of  this  waste,  says:  "The  loss  every 

lThe  American  Magazine,  March,  1911,  p.  574. 


130  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

year  through  preventable  deaths  and  sickness  amounts 
in  the  United  States  to  nearly  three  billion  dollars."1 
With  the  great  advances  which  are  being  made  in  hygiene, 
sanitation,  medicine,  and  surgery,  it  is  safe  to  say  that 
this  waste  will  be  increasingly  reduced  in  the  future. 
Of  course  the  amazing  increase  of  -production  since 
the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century  has  enormously 
stimulated  consumption;  but  notwithstanding  the 
rapid  elevation  of  the  standard  of  living,  the  increase 
of  wealth  has  been  still  more  rapid. 

H.      THE  NEW  SURPLUS  OF  WEALTH 

1.  Consider  our  present  assets. 

According  to  the  report  of  the  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury,  the  wealth  of  the  United  States  was 
$7,000,000,000  in  1850,  and  $107,000,000,000  in  1904. 
During  the  first  two  years  of  this  century  we  saved 
two  thousand  million  dollars  more  than  all  the  wealth 
that  had  been  accumulated  in  this  country  from  the 
first  settlement  down  to  1850  —  nearly  two  and  one 
half  centuries.  And  this  surplus  of  $9,000,000,000 
placed  to  our  credit  in  two  years,  doe's  not  represent 
our  creation  of  wealth,  which  was  very  much  greater, 
but  what  we  added  to  our  capital  after  an  extrava- 
gance of  expenditure  which  250  years  ago  would  have 
amazed  the  kings  of  the  earth. 

The  Rt.  Hon.  James  Bryce,  who  knows  America  as 
few  Americans  know  it,  on  revisiting  this  country  in 
1905,  wrote:  "That  which  most  strikes  the  visitor 
to  America  to-day  is  its  prodigious  material  develop- 
ment. .  .  .  The  Republic  is  as  wealthy  as  any 
two  of  the  greatest  European  nations."2 

'New  York  Times,  March  5,  1911. 
*The  Outlook,  March  25,  1905. 


NEW  PROBLEM  OF  WEALTH     131 

Such  statements  stagger  many,  especially  our  Euro- 
pean friends,  who  would  like  to  know  how  our  ap- 
praisals are  made,  and  whether  they  contain  as  much 
of  wind  and  water  as  of  substantial  value. 

Various  specialists,  including  such  men  as  the  Eng- 
lish statistician,  Michael  G.  Mulhall,  and  the  American 
statistician,  Carroll  D.  Wright,  made  estimates  of  our 
wealth  at  the  close  of  the  last  century,  and  in  every  in- 
stance their  estimates  were  larger  than  the  census 
appraisal  of  1900.  It  would  look  as  if  the  census  fig- 
ures, if  in  error,  were  too  small  rather  than  too  large. 

Mr.  L.  G.  Powers  of  the  Bureau  of  the  Census  puts 
it  in  this  way:  If  the  people  of  the  United  States 
should  decide  to  abandon  their  present  form  of  govern- 
ment and  to  organize  as  a  corporation,  and  if  all  the 
present  possessions  of  the  people  were  turned  over  to 
it,  the  value  of  the  assets  of  the  new  company  would 
equal  the  appraisal  of  the  national  wealth  made  by  the 
Unites  States  Census.1  Mr.  Carroll  D.  Wright,  speak- 
ing of  the  census,  says:  "By  'wealth'  is  meant  all  the 
tangible  property  of  the  country  at  its  true  valuation  — 
that  is,  its  market  value." 

Our  wealth  in  1900  is  given  by  the  Census  as 
$88,517,000,000;  and  for  1910  is  "estimated"  at 
$130,000,000,000,  which  may  be  regarded  as  conser- 
vative, in  view  of  the  statement  of  the  Treasury 
Department  for  1904,  which  gave  our  wealth  at  that 
date  as  $107,104,000,000.  On  the  supposition  that 
the  rate  of  increase  from  1900  to  1904  continued  until 
1910,  our  wealth  would  then  have  been  about 
$135,000,000,000. 

Our  per  capita  wealth  which  was  $307  in  1850  had 
become  $1,414  in  1910.  From  which  it  appears  that 

1The  American  Journal  of  Sociology,  September,  1908,  p.  171. 


132  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

notwithstanding  the  rapid  growth  of  our  population, 
our  wealth  has  grown  four  times  as  rapidly. 

2.  But  we  are  especially  concerned  with  our  future 
wealth.  Can  we  reach  any  reasonable  estimate  of  its 
increase? 

It  is  certain  that  science  has  not  yet  ransacked  nature. 
He  who  knows  most  of  the  mysteries  of  matter  best 
knows  that  we  have  made  only  a  beginning.  The  more 
we  extend  the  horizon  of  the  known,  the  more  vast 
becomes  the  boundary  of  the  recognized  unknown. 
Here  are  resources  that  need  no  conserving.  The  new 
power  and  the  new  science  which  have  created  the  new 
wealth  are  only  in  their  infancy.  If  power  is  produced 
without  heat,  and  at  a  small  fraction  of  its  present 
cost,  which  some  engineers  anticipate  at  an  early 
date,  it  will  give  another  impetus  to  material  civili- 
zation and  to  the  creation  of  wealth  second  only  to 
that  caused  by  the  substitution  of  mechanical  power  for 
vital.  Forces  are  known  to  exist  which  have  not  yet 
been  utilized;  and  chemistry  suggests  treasures  which 
can  never  be  exhausted. 

But  to  turn  from  the  possible  to  the  actual,  it  may  be 
objected  that  for  years  we  have  so  recklessly  exploited 
our  available  resources  as  to  have  robbed  the  future, 
and  that  we  cannot,  therefore,  expect  our  wealth  to 
continue  increasing  during  the  next  half  century  at  the 
rate  of  the  past  fifty  years.  American  enterprise  has 
been  short-sighted  and  selfish,  it  is  true,  but  I  do  not 
think  the  heritage  of  future  generations  has  been  im- 
poverished. Even  if  it  has,  we  must  remember  that 
the  development  of  the  natural  resources  of  the  earth, 
as  a  whole,  is  only  begun.  There  are  incalculable 
resources  in  Asia,  Africa,  South  America,  Australia, 
the  East  Indies,  Alaska,  and  Canada,  which  have  not 


NEW  PROBLEM  OF  WEALTH  133 

yet  been  touched.  Europe  and  the  United  States  are 
the  only  countries  in  the  world  where  any  considerable 
portion  of  the  possible  wealth  has  been  made  actual 
wealth. 

As  we  saw  in  the  preceding  chapter,  under  modern 
conditions  capital  is  as  necessary  for  the  develop- 
ment of  natural  resources  as  is  labour.  Europe  and 
America,  therefore,  will  have  to  furnish  most  of  the 
capital  for  opening  mines,  installing  electric  plants, 
constructing  railways,  building  factories,  and  providing 
the  machinery  now  employed  hi  all  kinds  of  industry. 
Thus  the  remarkable  opportunities  enjoyed  by  capital 
in  opening  up  the  United  States  during  the  past  half 
century  will  be  multiplied  several  fold  by  being  ex- 
tended to  the  ends  of  the  earth,  and  will  continue  for  at 
least  another  fifty  years. 

Our  argument  does  not  require  us  to  look  further 
than  that  into  the  future  at  present,  for  during  the 
next  half  century,  or  less,  will  come  the  great  world 
crisis,  the  supreme  world  opportunity,  which  will  be 
pointed  out  in  a  later  chapter. 

In  view  of  the  undoubted  fact  that  the  cost  of  power 
will  decrease,  that  raw  materials  will  increase  both  in 
abundance  and  variety,  that  waste  will  diminish,  and 
that  science  will  be  applied  more  and  more  to  industrial 
methods,  it  would  not  seem  to  be  unreasonable  to 
assume  that  our  wealth  will  grow  during  the  next  fifty 
years  at  as  large  a  rate  of  increase  as  during  the  past 
fifty. 

The  percentage  of  increase  has  varied  widely  from 
decade  to  decade,  as  follows.  From  1860-'70  the 
increase  was  86  per  cent.;  from  1870-'80  it  was  41.8; 
from  1880-'90  it  was  52.5;  from  1890-1900  it  was  36.1, 
and  from  1900-'10  it  was  46.8.  The  average  rate  for 


134  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

the  five  periods  was  52.6  per  cent.  But  instead  of  tak- 
ing this,  let  us  be  conservative  and  take  the  lowest 
rate  for  the  hah*  century,  viz.,  36.1  per  cent.,  which  we 
must  remember  is  only  three  and  six  tenths  per  cent,  per 
annum.  Sir  Robert  Giffen  tells  us  that  the  wealth  of 
Great  Britain  increases  3  per  cent,  yearly.  As  our 
wealth  is  increasing  far  more  rapidly  than  that  of 
Great  Britain  it  is  certainly  conservative  to  assume  that 
it  will  advance  on  the  average  at  least  3.6  per  cent, 
annually  during  the  next  half  century.  On  the  assump- 
tion then  that  each  decennial  census  for  the  next  fifty 
years  will  show  an  increase  in  our  wealth  of  36.1  per 
cent,  over  the  preceding,  our  assets  in  1960  will  be 
$607,000,000,000.  Our  wealth  increased  something 
over  eightfold  during  the  preceding  half  century.  In 
view  of  all  the  facts  pointed  out,  an  increase  of  con- 
siderably less  than  fivefold  during  the  next  half  cen- 
tury should  not  seem  incredible.  Even  if  we  cut  these 
figures  in  two  hi  the  middle,  they  would  still  equal  the 
present  wealth  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland,  France, 
Germany,  Russia,  Austria-Hungary,  Italy,  the  Nether- 
lands, Switzerland,  and  Spam,  all  combined. 

In  1860  the  natural  resources  of  the  United  States 
were  decidedly  more  developed  than  are  the  natural 
resources  of  Asia,  Africa,  South  America,  Australia, 
Canada,  and  Alaska  to-day.  But  since  1860,  hi  fifty 
years,  we  have  created  astounding  wealth  out  of  half  a 
continent,  and  have  made  only  a  good  beginning. 
With  four  continents  and  a  half  to  be  developed  during 
the  next  fifty  years  or  so,  and  with  unequalled  facilities 
for  furnishing  steel  rails,  bridges,  locomotives,  mining 
machinery,  electric  appliances,  and  a  thousand  other 
requirements  of  the  new  civilization,  together  with 
abundant  and  rapidly  increasing  capital  eagerly  seek- 


NEW  PROBLEM  OF  WEALTH  135 

ing  opportunity  for  investment,  would  it  not  be  a  little 
strange,  if  we  failed  to  add  3%o  per  cent,  to  our  wealth 
annually?  And  yet  if  we  do  this,  we  shall  amass  vastly 
more  wealth  in  fifty  years  than  all  Europe  has  saved  in 
fifty  centuries! 

III.      THE  NEW   POWER  OF  WEALTH 

1.  Wealth  is  more  powerful  than  formerly  not  only 
because  there  is  more  of  it  but  because  wealth  has  many 
new  equivalents.     That  is,  there  are  many  new  and 
rapidly  increasing  wants  which  only  wealth  can  satisfy. 
If  a  savage  has  only  two  wants,  wealth  has  to  him 
only  two  equivalents.     If  we  have  two  thousand  wants, 
wealth  means  a  thousand  tunes  as  much  to  us  as  to 
him.     It  is  a  characteristic  of  civilization  that  it  mul- 
tiplies wants.     There  are  many  hundreds  of  people  in 
the  United  States  whose  business  it  is  to  create  new 
wants.     The  government  issued  nearly  36,000  patents 
in  1910;  and  the  object  of  every  one  of  those  inventions 
was  to  create  a  new  want,  or  to  furnish  a  more  desir- 
able method  of  supplying  an  old  one.     A  few  years 
ago  no  one  wanted  an  automobile;  now  many  millions 
of  dollars  are  invested  and  many  thousands  of  men  are 
employed  in  supplying  this  new  demand.     And  there 
is  many  a  man  with  whom  this  new  want  is  so  imperious 
that  he  is  willing  to  mortgage  his  home  in  order  to 
gratify  it.     Our  wants  are  becoming  innumerable  and 
insatiable.     A  well  known  American  spends  $60,000,000 
in  collecting  paintings,  antiques,  and  curios.     And  in 
proportion  as  our  wants  increase  the  power  of  money 
increases,  so  that  the  influence  of  wealth  is  growing 
ever  greater,  and  like  the  pressure  of  the  atmosphere, 
is  exerted  in  all  directions. 

2.  Again,  the  power  of  wealth  is  increased  by  its 


136  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

concentration.  The  proverb  that  wealth  breeds  wealth 
is  ancient.  In  economics  as  in  physics  the  greater  mass 
has  the  greater  attracting  power.  There  is  a  strong 
tendency  for  the  one  talent  to  get  into  the  hands  of  the 
man  that  has  ten  talents.  "For  unto  him  that  hath 
shall  be  given  .  .  .  but  from  him  that  hath  not 
shall  be  taken  away  even  that  which  he  hath."  In  this 
utterance  Jesus  only  stated  a  law  as  old  as  wealth. 

In  recent  years,  however,  there  has  been  a  concen- 
tration of  wealth  and  power  which  is  a  new  phenomenon. 
Prof.  William  G.  Sumner  regarded  it  as  but  a  mode  of 
securing  more  perfect  integration,  "one  feature  of  a 
grand  step  in  societal  evolution." 

The  significant  fact  for  our  purpose  is  not  the  con- 
centration of  ownership  but  of  control.  It  is  stated 
that  the  stock  of  the  United  States  Steel  Corporation 
—  $1,528,000,000  par  value  — is  owned  by  about 
70,000  different  persons,  which  we  may  call  a  wide  dis- 
tribution of  wealth.  But  the  control  of  this  powerful 
corporation  is  vested  in  a  board  of  twenty -four  direc- 
tors, and  this  board  is  guided  by  the  executive  and 
finance  committees,  which  are  largely  dominated  by 
their  chairmen,  who  were  no  doubt  under  the  influence, 
if  not  the  control,  of  the  great  banker  who  organized 
the  corporation  and  in  large  measure  swayed  its  policy. 
The  reason  a  body  of  soldiers  is  more  effective  than  a 
mob  many  times  its  numbers  is  because  military  organ- 
ization and  drill  concentrate  the  entire  force  in  the 
hand  of  its  commander.  In  like  manner  concentrated 
wealth,  because  it  can  be  wielded  by  one  man  or  a 
small  coterie,  is  more  effective  than  many  tunes  as 
much  wealth  scattered  among  many  owners.  Modern 
facilities  of  communication  and  exchange  make  it  pos- 
sible for  the  great  financier  to  manipulate  forces  sepa- 


NEW  PROBLEM  OF  WEALTH  137 

rated  by  oceans,  and  to  apply  the  power  of  vast  wealth 
here  or  on  the  other  side  of  the  globe  in  an  instant  —  a 
power  such  as  Caesar  and  Napoleon  never  imagined. 

IV.     THE   NEW    PERILS   OF   WEALTH 

The  economic  advantages  of  centralizing  the  control 
of  wealth  are  many  and  great.  We  are  concerned  in 
this  connection  with 

1.  The  peril  of  concentrated  wealth. 

We  have  just  seen  how  the  property  of  70,000  people, 
concentrated  in  a  single  great  corporation,  may  be 
brought  under  the  control  of  the  representatives  of  one 
man.  In  like  manner  it  is  possible  to  concentrate  the 
control  of  many  great  corporations.  In  1903  a  writer 
in  the  World's  Work  gave  a  list  of  corporations  the 
aggregate  wealth  of  which  indicated  "in  approximate 
figures  the  extent  of  the  Morgan  influence,"  viz., 
$6,268,000,000.  In  1911  a  writer  in  the  Wall  Street 
Journal  gave  a  list  of  banks,  trust  companies,  and  in- 
surance companies  by  name,  together  with  railroads 
and  industrials,  all  controlled  by  Mr.  Morgan,  the 
assets  of  which  aggregated  $4,874,197,897.  Railroads 
partly  financed  by  him  and  other  interests  brought  the 
grand  total  up  to  $9,300,000,000,  as  the  aggregate 
wealth  actually  controlled  or  indirectly  influenced  by 
this  one  man. 

This  is  $2,000,000,000  more  than  the  entire  wealth  of 
the  nation  in  1850,  when  many  men  still  alive  were 
beginning  business.  If  our  economic  system  remains 
the  same,  and  no  legal  impediment  is  imposed,  in  view 
of  the  opportunities  afforded  by  the  approaching 
development  of  four  and  a  half  continents,  it  is  entirely 
conceivable  that  fifty  years  hence  a  single  coterie  may 


138  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

control  as  much  of  the  world's  wealth  as  is  now  owned 
by  all  the  people  of  the  United  States. 

We  have  seen  that  Europe  and  America  will  furnish 
most  of  the  capital  for  the  development  of  those  por- 
tions of  the  earth  which  are  still  undeveloped.  This  will 
confer  on  private  citizens  in  European  countries  and 
the  United  States  an  international  power  which  is  not 
possessed  by  governments.  Take  an  illustration  from 
international  investments  already  large,  but  destined 
to  be  incomparably  larger. 

The  Electric  Light  and  Power  Company  of  Rio  de 
Janeiro  has  harnessed  a  waterfall  in  suburban  moun- 
tains and  brought  the  power  to  the  city,  where  the  Com- 
pany controls  not  only  the  electric  lighting  and  the  gas 
plant,  but  also  the  telephone  and  tram  systems,  and  is 
able  to  furnish  manufacturers  with  power  at  half  the 
cost  of  steam. 

Here  is  a  fourfold  monopoly  of  alien  capital  which 
holds  in  its  grasp  the  very  vitals  of  a  city  having 
1,000,000  inhabitants  —  the  political  and  commercial 
capital  of  a  land  as  large  as  our  own.  Suppose  the  legis- 
lature to  be  venal  —  not  a  violent  supposition;  poli- 
ticians have  been  known  to  have  itching  palms  —  what 
is  to  prevent  an  indefinite  prolongation  of  the  life  of  the 
franchise? 

The  present  officials  of  the  company  are  most  cour- 
teous and  high-minded  gentlemen;  but  who  shall  guar- 
antee their  successors?1 

Such  instances,  by  no  means  rare,  will  soon  be  com- 
mon everywhere;  and  in  addition  to  the  opportunity  for 
oppression  which  will  be  afforded  conscienceless  greed, 
a  vast  amount  of  wealth  will  be  drained  away  from 

'This  company  has  been  recently  reorganized  with  enlarged  powers, 
and  a  capital  stock  of  $120,000,000. 


NEW  PROBLEM  OF  WEALTH    139 

the  countries  where  it  is  produced  for  the  further  en- 
richment of  Europe  and  the  United  States. 

Just  how  such  economic  control  may  ultimately  com- 
plicate international  political  relations  remains  to  be 
seen.  It  was  large  English  holdings  in  the  Suez  Canal 
which  led  to  the  British  occupation  of  Egypt. 

In  view  of  the  fact  that  the  virgin  resources  of  the 
globe  are  so  largely  in  the  hands  of  coloured  races, 
while  the  world's  capital  is  chiefly  in  the  hands  of  the 
white  race,  we  hardly  need  to  be  reminded  of  the  hor- 
rors of  the  Congo  to  suggest  the  danger  of  a  wide 
recrudescence  of  slavery  in  disguised  forms,  of  which 
Sir  Charles  Dilke  gave  warning  shortly  before  his  death. 

But  the  almost  measureless  power  of  vast  concentra- 
tions of  wealth  comes  more  closely  home  to  us.  Such 
power  is  essentially  inconsistent  with  the  spirit  and 
institutions  of  democracy.  Daniel  Webster  is  quoted 
as  saying,  "Liberty  cannot  long  endure  in  a  country 
where  the  tendency  is  to  concentrate  wealth  in  the 
hands  of  the  few."  Said  President  Hadley  of  Yale  in 
his  inaugural  address:  "The  increase  of  wealth  is  a  per- 
petual menace  to  old-fashioned  democratic  equality." 
And  in  an  address  at  the  same  University,  the  eminent 
historian  and  publicist,  Ambassador  James  Bryce, 
said:1  "The  power  of  money  is  the  root  of  all  evil  in 
government  and  is  the  real  danger  to  democracy.  The 
damage  done  by  it  is  more  than  that  done  by  apathy 
and  indifference." 

The  history  of  liberty  is  the  history  of  the  distribu- 
tion of  power.  Only  as  political  power  has  been 
wrested  from  the  few  and  divided  among  the  many 
have  men  become  free.  We  recognize  the  people  as 

*"Self  Interest  as  a  Hindrance  to  Good  Citizenship,"  October  16, 
1908. 


140  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

the  source  of  political  power.  When  they  delegate 
that  power  to  their  representatives  it  returns  to  them 
by  limitation  after  one,  two,  or  four  years.  Moreover, 
it  is  carefully  defined  by  constitutional  restrictions. 

Let  us  suppose  now  that  political  power  is  grasped 
by  the  strongest  hands,  regardless  of  fitness  or  of  the 
will  of  the  people.  Let  us  suppose  that  the  amount  of 
power  which  can  be  thus  gained  has  no  constitutional 
or  other  limits,  that  it  is  not  automatically  terminated 
after  a  few  years,  but,  after  having  been  exercised 
through  life,  it  is  conferred  on  natural  heirs,  to  be  in- 
definitely augmented  and  transmitted  by  them.  How 
long  should  we  be  a  free  people?  How  long  would  it 
be  before  our  democracy  lapsed  into  feudalism  and 
absolutism,  "tempered  by  the  fear  of  assassination?" 
Our  supposition  simply  carries  us  back  to  a  time  prior 
to  the  birth  of  civil  liberty. 

Now  the  power  of  concentrated  wealth  is  quite  as 
real  as  political  power;  it  is  much  more  subtle  and  is 
further  reaching;  moreover  it  is  capable  of  growing  to 
unlimited  proportions.  Why  should  we  fear  the  con- 
centration of  the  one  power  and  not  that  of  the  other? 

The  power  of  centralized  wealth  has  various  ways  of 
controlling  legislation. 

It  can  subsidize  the  venal  press,  thus  powerfully 
influencing  public  opinion. 

By  regulating  the  flow  of  credit  it  can  precipitate 
financial  ruin  upon  many,  at  its  pleasure. 

By  the  ubiquity  of  its  power  it  can  exploit  certain 
raw  materials  throughout  the  world,  thus  limiting  the 
activities  of  various  industries 

By  controlling  the  wages  of  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
workmen  it  can  lay  its  hand  on  the  lives  of  millions  of 
the  people. 


NEW  PROBLEM  OF  WEALTH  141 

By  cornering  the  necessaries  of  life  it  can  raise  the 
death  rate. 

By  increasing  the  cost  of  living  it  can  raise  the  age  of 
marriage  and  lower  the  birth  rate,  thus  penetrating  to 
the  most  personal  and  intimate  relations  of  life. 

By  closing  the  door  of  opportunity  to  enterprise, 
and  by  repressing  initiative  it  can  do  much  to  elimi- 
nate individuality  and  impoverish  character. 

In  a  word,  the  unchecked  concentration  of  wealth  is 
capable  of  destroying  popular  liberties  and  of  reducing 
us  to  a  slavery  as  real  as  any  from  which  humanity  has 
emancipated  itself.  And  if  we  become  enslaved,  it  will 
make  little  difference  how  we  catalogue  the  kind  of 
power  which  oppresses  us. 

That  concentrated  wealth  has  already  become  peril- 
ous is  obvious  when  we  gain  any  real  appreciation  of  the 
enormous  figures  given  above.  We  were  told  that  one 
man  controlled  $4,874,000,000.  Let  us  translate  this 
statement  into  more  comprehensive  terms.  The  rev- 
enues which  meet  the  immense  expenditures  of  a  great 
government  must  be  vast.  Let  us  now  add  to  the  total 
annual  revenues  of  the  United  States,  ordinary  and  ex- 
traordinary, those  of  Great  Britain,  Germany,  France, 
Italy,  and  Austria-Hungary,  and  all  these  combined 
fall  short  by  $187,000,000  of  the  vast  wealth  which  we 
are  told  was  "actually  controlled"  by  one  man,  while 
nearly  as  much  more  was  "indirectly  influenced"  by 
him.  Is  there  anything  undemocratic  hi  this? 

Doubtless  there  is  more  than  one  private  citizen  in 
the  United  States  who  holds  in  his  hand  decidedly  more 
power  than  the  King  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland  and 
the  Emperor  of  India.  Is  there  anything  undemocratic 
in  this? 

Several  years  ago  one  of  the  most  distinguished  mem- 


142  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

bers  of  the  Supreme  Court,  the  late  Justice  Harlan, 
said  to  me:  "I  regard  vast  and  increasing  corporate 
wealth  as  the  supreme  peril  of  the  United  States." 

2.  Turn  now  to  the  peril  of  luxury  which  has  followed 
wealth  like  a  blighting  shadow. 

Few  who  command  the  means  of  gratifying  every 
desire  are  strong  enough  to  live  the  simple  life.  In- 
clination to  self-indulgence,  always  a  strong  current,  is 
a  stream  which,  unless  dammed  by  a  powerful  will, 
always  flows  down  to  lower  levels.  Luxury  renders 
effeminate,  then  sensuous,  then  sensual;  and  national 
sensuality  means  national  decay.  Men  are  never  pam- 
pered into  greatness.  Herodotus  wrote:  "It  is  a  law 
of  nature  that  faint-hearted  men  should  be  the  fruit  of 
luxurious  countries,  for  we  never  find  that  the  same 
soil  produces  deh'cacies  and  heroes."  Climates  where 
the  conditions  of  life  are  too  easy  have  never  grown 
great  civilizations.  It  is  those  conditions  of  life  which 
both  compel  and  reward  struggle  that  produce  national 
greatness. 

In  the  world's  past,  luxury  was  a  peril  of  the  few;  it 
is  now  a  peril  of  large  and  rapidly  increasing  numbers. 
There  are  luxuries  within  easy  reach  of  the  average  man 
to-day,  which  were  impossible  to  the  king  a  few  genera- 
tions ago. 

Not  only  does  wealth  tend  to  breed  luxury,  but 
quickly  acquired  wealth  is  almost  invariably  prodigal  of 
expenditure.  When  wealth  has  descended  through 
many  generations  there  have  usually  come  with  it  both 
a  heredity  and  a  training  which  conserve  it.  It  is  the 
"new  rich"  who  set  the  most  extravagant  and  criminal 
standards  of  living.  A  large  manufacturer  of  silverware 
and  jewellery  and  dealer  in  diamonds,  who  controls 
that  business  in  Canada,  said  to  me:  "When  the  'nesv 


NEW  PROBLEM  OF  WEALTH  143 

rich'  disappear  we  shall  go  out  of  business."  The 
industrial  revolution,  therefore,  which  has  quickened 
the  creation  of  wealth,  say  a  hundredfold,  and  which  is 
rapidly  spreading  over  the  world,  is  enormously  in- 
creasing the  peril  of  luxury. 

Obviously  this  peril  is  greater  here  in  the  United 
States  than  elsewhere,  because  wealth  is  greater  and 
increasing  more  rapidly  here  than  anywhere  else.  In 
an  ode  "To  The  Invincible  Republic"  William  Watson 
says: 

And  as  thou  art  vast, 
So  are  the  perils  vast,  that  evermore 
In  thine  own  house  are  bred;  nor  least  of  these 
That  fair  and  fell  Delilah,  Luxury, 
That  shears  the  hero's  strength  away,  and  brings 
Palsy  on  nations.     Flee  her  loveliness, 
For  in  the  end  her  kisses  are  a  sword. 

The  great  and  sudden  influx  of  gold  and  silver  from 
Mexico  and  Peru  stimulated  the  luxury  and  decay 
which  undermined  Spanish  greatness  in  the  sixteenth 
century,  and  conquered  the  most  powerful  empire  in 
the  world,  to  arms  invincible.  The  wealth  which  is 
now  being  poured  into  the  lap  of  civilization  is  incom- 
parably greater  than  Aztec  or  Inca  ever  knew,  or 
Spanish  avarice  ever  dreamed,  and  the  suddenness  of 
its  acquisition  places  a  vast  and  unprecedented  strain 
on  the  moral  strength  of  the  nations. 

Says  Prince  Kropotkin:  "For  the  first  time  in  the 
history  of  civilization,  mankind  has  reached  a  point 
where  the  means  of  satisfying  its  needs  are  in  excess  of 
the  needs  themselves."  Society  in  general  has  hereto- 
fore faced  the  probability  of  an  annual  deficit;  in  the 
future  it  will  face  an  annual  surplus  —  a  new  situation 
in  the  world's  history,  creating  a  widely  different  en- 


144  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

vironment  with  profoundly  different  influences  on 
character.  Human  nature  is  lazy  and  needs  the  lash 
of  necessity  to  bring  it  up  to  the  mark.  It  was  Emerson, 
I  think,  who  said:  "Every  man  is  as  lazy  as  he  dares 
to  be;"  and  some  of  us  are  very  courageous.  Society 
will  grow  more  "  courageous"~as  the  surplus  grows.  It 
was  when  his  barns  were  full  to  bursting  that  the  rich 
fool  said:  "Soul  take  thine  ease."  Strong  characters 
are  bred  in  the  presence  of  great  necessities  behind 
and  great  obstacles  before.  It  was  the  alternative  of 
struggle  or  death  which  forced  life  to  rise  from  lower 
to  higher  forms.  Struggle,  as  we  have  seen,  is  no  less 
a  necessity  of  the  higher  than  of  the  lower  life;  and  it  is 
only  after  the  higher  motives  have  grown  strong  and 
commanding  that  it  is  safe  to  be  released  from  the 
struggle  for  material  good.  One  of  the  greatest  perils 
of  the  near  future  is  that  increasing  multitudes  will  be 
released  by  wealth  from  the  necessity  of  struggling  for 
themselves  without  ever  feeling  the  noble  compulsion  to 
struggle  for  others.  Under  such  conditions  what  is  to 
prevent  the  moral  muscles  from  becoming  flabby? 

3.  A  more  general  peril  than  that  of  luxury  is  the 
spirit  of  commercialism,  which  both  inspires  the  strug- 
gle for  wealth  and  is  stimulated  by  it. 

From  the  beginning  the  vast  majority  of  the  race 
have  been  occupied  in  gaining  a  livelihood.  Riches 
have  been  too  far  beyond  the  reach  of  the  many  to 
attract.  Even  when  Europe  was  inflamed  by  the  great 
discovery  of  Columbus  to  engage  in  maritime  adventure 
for  gold,  the  common  people  had  no  expectation  of 
wealth;  the  El  Dorado  sought  was  too  remote.  But  in 
America  the  new  civilization,  with  its  wonderful  dis- 
coveries, its  swift  changes,  its  expanding  cities,  its 
appreciating  values,  its  opportunities  for  fortunate  in- 


NEW  PROBLEM  OF  WEALTH  145 

vestment,  has  brought  great  possibilities  to  every  man's 
door.  Not  only  do  the  conditions  of  life  make  riches 
a  greater  prize  here  than  elsewhere,  but  they  put  that 
prize  within  the  reach  of  vastly  greater  numbers,  so 
that  it  appeals  to  the  popular  imagination.  I  suppose 
it  is  safe  to  say  that  at  some  time  in  their  lives  the  great 
majority  of  Americans  have  hoped  to  become  rich. 
Certainly  there  are  millions  among  us,  as  nowhere 
else,  who  are  struggling  not  simply  for  a  livelihood  but 
for  wealth,  which  is  a  very  different  thing,  is  inspired 
by  a  very  different  motive  and  has  very  different  results. 
The  former  has  been  one  of  the  most  important  factors 
in  the  elevation  and  education  of  humanity;  but  the 
latter  intensifies  materialism,  strengthens  covetousness 
and  often  produces  money  madness. 

"They  that  will  be  rich  fall  into  temptation  and  a 
snare,  and  into  many  foolish  and  hurtful  lusts,  which 
drown  men  in  destruction  and  perdition."1; 

4.  Another  peril  is  popular  discontent,  which  is 
aggravated  by  each  of  the  perils  which  have  been  dis- 
cussed, and  which  cannot  continue  growing  indef- 
initely without  culminating  in  social  revolution. 

While  it  is  true  that  more  men  gain  wealth  now  than 
ever  before,  those  who  win  the  prizes,  as  in  a  lottery 
drawing,  must  needs  be  comparatively  few;  so  that  the 
great  majority  of  those  who  hope  and  strive  for  it  are 
disappointed. 

In  the  old  industry  a  man  might  take  pride  in  his 
craft  and  really  enjoy  his  handiwork,  but  it  is  difficult 
to  be  enthusiastic  over  the  mechanical  processes  of  a 
machine,  or  at  the  prospect  of  standing  all  of  one's  life 
behind  a  counter  or  over  a  ledger.  When,  therefore, 

'Tim.  VI :  9.  For  a  further  discussion  of  the  subject  see  the  writer's 
"Our  Country,"  pp.  166-171. 


146  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

a  young  man  gives  up  all  hope  of  becoming  rich,  he 
naturally  grows  discontented  with  the  industrial  and 
social  system  which  condemns  him  for  life  to  the  tread- 
mill. 

Moreover  the  luxury  which  looks  down  on  him  from 
the  palace,  and  mocks  him  from  the  show  window,  and 
flashes  past  him  in  the  automobile,  excites  his  envy 
and  increases  his  discontent. 

What  do  men  of  this  large  class  think  when  they  read 
of  paying  $10,000  for  a  cradle,  $38,000  for  a  washstand, 
and  $65,000  for  a  dressing  table,  $1,000  for  a  hat  pin, 
and  $20,000  for  a  hat  —  a  man's  hat,  too!  —  $50,000 
for  a  piano,  $75,000  for  opera  glasses,  $280,000  for  a 
string  of  pearls,  and  $600,000  for  a  diamond  necklace. 

A  year  or  two  ago  the  papers  announced  the  com- 
pletion of  the  $7,000,000  mansion  of  a  former  senator. 
This  palace  has  121  rooms  for  one  small  family.  Mrs. 
Booth  found  seven  families  huddled  in  one  small  room 
in  this  same  city  of  New  York.  In  the  same  paper  hi 
which  were  described  the  $300,000  pipe  organ,  the 
$500,000  worth  of  rugs,  and  the  $2,000,000  worth  of 
pictures  in  this  $7,000,000  palace  I  read  on  another 
page:  "Peking,  China,  Dec.  19.  —  Roads  in  the 
Yangtse-Kiang  famine  districts  are  dotted  with  the 
dead  and  the  dying  from  hunger,  and  the  cold  season 
is  intensifying  the  distress.  It  is  estimated  that  more 
than  a  million  children  have  been  sold  by  their  parents 
to  procure  food."  Look  on  this  picture,  and  then  look 
on  that.  Is  there  a  suggestion  of  anything  wrong,  any 
fuel  for  feeding  the  flame  of  popular  discontent,  in  such 
antithetic  facts? 

At  an  elaborate  dinner  in  New  York  each  cigarette 
was  rolled,  not  in  white  paper,  but  in  a  one-hundred 
dollar  bill.  And  when  this  ingenious  method  of  destroy- 


NEW  PROBLEM  OF  WEALTH  147 

ing  money  was  discovered  by  the  guests  it  was  greeted 
with  loud  applause. 

Such  people  in  their  "social  racing"  or  competitive 
display  have  sunk  one  stage  lower  than  devoting  them- 
selves to  pleasure  regardless  of  expense;  as  Colonel 
Waring  said:  "They  devote  themselves  to  expense 
without  regard  to  pleasure." 

I  should  like  to  see  this  man  who  had  "money  to 
burn,"  without  a  metaphor,  and  who  burned  it,  set  to 
work  on  a  farm  or  in  a  coal  mine  until  with  honest 
toil  and  sweat  he  had  earned  as  many  hundred  dollars 
as  he  thus  destroyed  with  vulgar  ostentation.  But  a 
severer  punishment  would  be  a  just  appreciation  of  his 
own  criminal  folly,  his  wanton  contempt  of  human 
misery.  An  honest  look  at  himself,  with  a  vision  of  a 
background  filled  with  hollow  cheeks  and  big,  hungry 
eyes,  would  bring  a  self-loathing  more  terrible  far 
than  the  nakedness  and  hunger  and  frost  which  he 
had  flouted.  , 

What  is  the  natural  effect  on  a  man,  whose  stomach 
and  pocket  are  alike  empty,  when  he  reads  of  a  dinner 
costing  $250  a  plate? 

At  a  banquet  given  in  honor  of  a  dog,  the  host  in  the 
midst  of  the  dinner  formally  decorated  the  dog  with  a 
diamond  collar  worth  $15,000.  That  dog  collar  would 
have  given  several  promising  young  men  or  women  a 
liberal  education. 

We  read  of  silver  bathtubs  and  perfumed  baths  for 
pets;  of  a  pink  Persian  kitten's  "wearing  a  gold  crown 
on  its  head  and  a  gold  order  around  it  neck."  Its 
owner,  a  prominent  New  York  society  woman,  boasts 
that  she  was  the  first  to  give  a  cat  a  pair  of  fine  diamond 
earrings;  "bangles  and  necklaces  had  become  so  very 
hackneyed."  I  may  add  parenthetically  that  if 


148  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

diamond  earrings  or  any  other  kind  must  be  worn,  they 
look  rather  less  barbarous  in  the  ears  of  a  cat  than  in 
the  ears  of  a  human  being.  We  read  also  of  a  two- 
story  house  for  twenty -six  cats,  each  having  its  own 
bed  and  bedstead,  which  in  cold  weather  are  warmed 
with  hot-water  bottles.  There  are  children  in  this  city 
who  sleep  four  or  five  in  a  bed,  and  there  are  others  in 
every  great  city  every  winter  night  who  do  not  look 
for  hot-water  bottles,  because  they  have  no  beds  to 
warm. 

It  is  stated  that  a  fashionable  dog  to-day  must  have 
not  only  overcoat,  shoes,  and  umbrella,  but  at  least  a 
half  dozen  pocket  handkerchiefs,  "embroidered  with 
its  own  initial  or  with  its  owner's  name  or  crest." 
One  of  these  is  carried  in  a  little  pocket  in  the  side  of 
the  elaborately  braided  and  embroidered  blanket,  "to 
be  used  whenever  the  'poor  darling'  has  a  cold  or  is 
troubled  with  watery  eyes." 

We  read  of  a  dog  that  has  a  complete  gold  service  on 
which  his  carefully  cooked  food  is  served  to  him.  In 
this  new  day  and  new  world  of  measureless  opportunity 
to  transmute  gold  into  service,  such  a  shameless  and 
criminal  use  of  wealth  is  far  worse  than  Nero's  shoeing 
his  mules  with  gold.  We  also  read  of  a  $50,000  French 
poodle  with  a  private  nurse,  a  private  maid,  and  a 
private  footman.  This  dog  usually  rises  at  8  A.  M.,  is 
combed  and  dressed,  takes  some  cream,  and  breakfasts 
at  ten. 

What  a  mistake  many  children  made  when  they  were 
born  human  beings  instead  of  kittens  or  puppies ! 

I  cannot  think  there  are  many  who  are  guilty  of  such 
beastly  wallowing  in  wealth;  and  the  few  might  be  fit- 
tingly ignored  but  for  the  measureless  mischief  which 
they  do.  These  disgusting  stories  are  very  likely  exag- 


NEW  PROBLEM  OF  WEALTH     149 

gerated;  but  if  so,  their  inaccuracy  does  not  blunt  my 
point,  which  is  the  effect  produced  by  such  statements 
on  the  popular  mind  and  especially  on  workingmen. 
Every  one  of  the  above  stories  has  been  given  wide 
publicity.  Workingmen  generally  believe  that  labour 
is  the  sole  originator  of  wealth,  and  that  if  justice  were 
done,  the  wealth  of  the  nation  would  be  divided  among 
those  who  have  produced  it.  How  are  such  men 
affected  by  stories  of  luxury  which  is  obviously  crimi- 
nal, especially  when  they  are  out  of  work  and  their 
families  are  hungry?  What  do  they  think  when  they 
hear  the  much  quoted  remark  of  the  late  Pierre  Loril- 
lard,  viz.:  "A  man  with  $100,000  a  year  is  in  the  un- 
happy position  where  he  can  see  what  a  good  time  he 
could  have  if  only  he  had  the  money."  And  added  that 
easy  circumstances  meant  "a  thousand  dollars  a  day 
—  and  expenses."  This  may  have  been  but  a  "flam- 
boyant jest,"  but  the  scale  of  living  of  a  certain  class  of 
multi-millionaires  suggests  that  it  may  have  been  a 
jest  spoken  in  earnest.  At  any  rate  it  is  easy  for  those, 
to  take  it  seriously  who  desire  to  do  so. 

Of  course  there  are  multi-millionaires,  and  many  of 
them,  who  do  not  belong  to  this  criminal  class  and  who 
would  denounce  such  wicked  folly  as  strongly  as  any 
one,  but  an  embittered  man  who  is  nursing  his  dis- 
content does  not  make  nice  distinctions. 

Again,  popular  discontent  is  aggravated  by  the  con- 
centration of  wealth. 

Several  years  ago  there  appeared  a  statement  in  the 
press  that  by  reason  of  a  drop  in  certain  stocks  Mr. 
Rockefeller,  for  a  time,  lost  a  million  dollars  a  minute. 
If  this  was  true,  by  a  reversal  of  conditions  he  might 
have  gamed  a  million  dollars  a  minute  quite  as  easily. 

Later  the  public  read  that  one  of  the  large  owners 


150  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

of  the  Singer  Sewing  Machine  property  went  to  bed 
worth  many  millions  and  woke  up  the  next  morning 
worth  $29,000,000  more. 

The  truth  of  these  statements  does  not  concern  my 
argument.  They  may  or  may  not  have  been  gross  exag- 
gerations. The  significant  point  is  that  such  state- 
ments are  published  and  that  the  existing  concentration 
of  wealth  makes  them  credible.  What  is  their  effect  on 
popular  discontent? 

If  the  twelve  apostles  had  remained  workingmen, 
and  had  been  condemned  to  live  and  work  until  they 
had  earned  $29,000,000,  when  would  then*  indeter- 
minate sentence  expire?  Utterly  disregarding  the 
market  wage,  we  will  allow  them  each  $3/  a  day,  which 
is  much  more  than  the  average  toiler  gets  in  the  United 
States,  to  say  nothing  of  other  countries  and  other 
ages.  Supposing  they  never  get  a  day  off  —  not  even 
Sunday,  at  this  writing  they  would  be  millions  of 
dollars  behind,  and  would  have  to  work  on  until  the 
year  2240  before  their  aggregate  earnings  would 
amount  to  $29,000,000.  To  earn  that  amount  in  one 
year,  at  the  same  wage,  would  require  an  army  of 
26,000  men.  To  create  that  amount  of  wealth  in  one 
night,  had  that  been  necessary,  9,666,000  workmen 
would  have  had  to  toil  while  our  stockholder  slept, 
and  then  have  handed  over  their  wages  in  the  morning. 

"Twenty-nine  millions  in  a  night!"  or  "A  million 
dollars  a  minute!"  carries  tons  of  social  dynamite. 

Doubtless  many  can  prove  (to  then*  own  satis- 
faction) that  it  is  utterly  unreasonable  for  the  working- 
man  to  be  discontented;  but  such  proof  adds  nothing 
to  his  income  and  subtracts  nothing  from  his  wants. 

When  Sir  Robert  Giffen  shows  that  workingmen  are 
receiving  larger  wages  than  their  grandfathers  did, 


NEW  PROBLEM  OF  WEALTH     151 

many  infer  that  poverty  is  decreasing,  and  that  dis- 
content ought  to  decrease.  But  poverty,  like  wealth, 
is  relative.  It  depends  on  the  relation  which  supply 
sustains  to  want.  If  a  naked  savage  has  only  one 
want,  he  is  rich  as  often  as  he  gluts  his  appetite.  Diog- 
enes in  his  tub  was  so  opulent  that  Alexander  could 
not  enrich  him  except  by  stepping  out  of  his  sunshine; 
and  the  miser  is  always  poor  no  matter  how  many  his 
millions.  A  man  may  have  five  times  as  many  things 
as  his  grandfather  had,  but  if  he  wants  ten  times  as 
many  things  as  his  grandfather  wanted,  he  is  only  one 
half  as  well  off,  and  is  probably  twice  as  discontented. 

There  are  certain  facts  bearing  on  popular  discontent 
which  are  obvious  enough  to  all  but  the  significance 
of  which  seems  largely  to  have  escaped  notice.  There 
are  many  people  now  living  in  a  fool's  paradise  who 
having  "much  goods  laid  up  for  many  years"  are 
eating,  drinking,  and  making  merry,  quite  heedless  of 
the  mutterings  which  threaten  in  due  time  to  grow 
articulate  with  a  summons  to  judgment.  President 
J.  G.  Schurman  of  Cornell  University,  addressing  the 
National  Corn  Exposition  at  Omaha,  said:  "Colossal 
fortunes  are  on  trial  in  this  country.  Whether  and 
how  far  it  is  worth  while  to  encourage  and  protect  them 
is  a  question  for  the  future,"  adding  that  the  voters  of 
the  country  would  answer  that  question.  And  the 
popular  vote  will  decide  that  question  in  accordance 
with  the  popular  conception  of  right  and  justice. 
There  are  others  who,  like  Judge  Gary,  quoted  in  the 
preceding  chapter,  are  much  more  impressed  by  the 
peril  than  by  the  injustice  of  existing  conditions. 

It  is  well,  however,  to  be  cool-headed  and  open-eyed; 
well  neither  to  scare  others  nor  to  fool  ourselves,  but  to 
recognize  facts  precisely  as  they  are,  give  to  them  a 


152  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

sober-minded  interpretation,  and  then  follow  the  dic- 
tates of  wisdom. 

The  first  fact  to  which  I  would  call  attention  in  con- 
nection with  this  world-wide  feeling  of  unrest  is  the 
existence  of  an  abundance  for  all,  wherever  organized 
industry  has  gone. 

From  the  beginning  there  have  been  but  two  steps  to 
the  economic  millennium,  namely,  adequate  production 
and  adequate  distribution.  As  we  have  seen,  the  sub- 
stitution of  mechanical  power  for  vital  power,  almost 
within  the  memory  of  living  men,  has  given  to  the 
world  a  new  power  of  production  which  is  actually  in 
excess  of  its  power  of  consumption.  In  case  of  the 
great  staples  caution  must  be  exercised  lest  the  market 
be  glutted  and  deranged  by  then*  unrestricted  increase. 

This  enormous  supply  has  enormously  stimulated 
demand,  with  the  result  that  in  all  so-called  industrial 
countries  the  standard  of  living  has  wonderfully  risen 
during  the  last  half  century.  Abraham  Lincoln,  when 
he  left  the  practice  of  law  to  become  President,  had 
earned  a  modest  home  and  had  accumulated  $8,000. 
He  hoped  some  time  to  increase  it  to  $20,000,  which  he 
said  was  "as  much  as  any  man  ought  to  want."  If  I 
may  be  permitted  to  draw  an  illustration  from  my  own 
experience,  when  I  was  a  boy,  fifty  years  ago,  many  a 
time  did  I  tramp  thirty  miles  for  ten  cents.  Since  then 
there  has  been  a  vast  expansion  of  the  horizon  of  the 
world  in  which  we  live,  and  of  that  in  which  we  want  to 
live;  and  the  higher  our  standard  of  living  rises  the 
wider  grows  the  horizon  of  desire  —  that  is,  the  more  we 
have  the  more  we  want. 

There  has  been  an  unprecedented  increase  of  wealth 
and  an  unprecedented  increase  of  wants,  but  not  a  cor- 
responding distribution  of  the  new  wealth  to  meet  the 


NEW  PROBLEM  OF  WEALTH  153 

new  wants;  hence  popular  discontent.  Or,  in  other 
words,  this  world- wide  unrest  is  due  to  the  fact  that  the 
first  of  the  two  great  economic  steps  has  been  taken  and 
the  second  has  not. 

There  are  those  who  think  that  the  poor  are  much 
better  off  than  formerly.  But  I  imagine  that  no  one 
thinks  so  who  is  personally  acquainted  with  the  slums 
of  our  great  cities,  or  who  has  made  a  scientific  study 
of  the  subject.  Let  us  call  to  the  witness  stand  a  man 
who  had  been  trained  all  his  lif  e  to  see  things  as  they 
are,  in  whom  the  scientific  habit  of  mind  had  been  con- 
firmed, who  had  lived  as  a  medical  officer  in  the  East 
of  London,  and  spoke  out  of  his  own  ultimate  knowl- 
edge, viz.,  Professor  Huxley.  Referring  to  the  in- 
creasing mass  of  the  wretched  in  great  cities,  he  says: 
"It  is  a  condition  in  which  food,  warmth,  and  clothing, 
which  are  necessary  for  the  mere  maintenance  of  the 
functions  of  the  body  in  their  normal  state,  cannot  be 
obtained;  in  which  men,  women,  and  children  are 
forced  to  crowd  into  dens  where  decency  is  abolished, 
and  the  most  ordinary  conditions  of  healthful  existence 
are  impossible  of  attainment;  in  which  the  pleasures 
within  reach  are  reduced  to  brutality  and  drunken- 
ness; in  which  the  pains  accumulate  at  compound 
interest  in  the  shape  of  starvation,  disease,  stunted 
development,  and  moral  degradation;  in  which  the 
prospect  of  even  steady  and  honest  industry  is  a  life 
of  unsuccessful  battling  with  hunger,  rounded  by  a 
pauper's  grave.  .  .  .  When  the  organization  of 
society,  instead  of  mitigating  this  tendency,  tends  to 
continue  and  intensify  it,  when  a  given  social  order 
plainly  makes  for  evil  and  not  for  good,  men  naturally 
enough  begin  to  think  it  high  time  to  try  a  fresh  ex- 
periment. I  take  it  to  be  a  mere  plain  truth  that 


154  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

throughout  industrial  Europe  there  is  not  a  single  large 
manufacturing  city  which  is  free  from  a  large  mass  of 
people  whose  condition  is  exactly  that  described,  and 
from  a  still  greater  mass  who,  living  just  on  the  edge  of 
the  social  swamp,  are  liable  to  be  precipitated  into  it."1 

Let  us  remember  that  this  is  not  the  "incendiary 
speech"  of  a  professional  agitator,  but  the  deliberate 
finding  of  a  dispassionate  man  of  science;  and  volumes 
more  of  like  testimony  might  be  cited. 

There  are  many  poor  to-day  who  are  as  destitute  as 
the  poor  of  two  or  three  generations  ago,  because  they 
have  simply  nothing;  and  as  the  rich  are  vastly  richer 
than  ever  before,  it  follows  that  the  extremes  of  so- 
ciety are  far  more  widely  separated  now  than  ever 
before.  The  great  increase  in  production  has,  there- 
fore, aggravated  popular  discontent. 

If  there  is  a  famine  at  sea,  men  are  likely  to  accept 
short  rations  with  heroism  because  necessity  is  upon 
them.  If,  however,  it  is  discovered  that  there  is  an 
abundance  for  all,  and  that  the  common  seamen  are 
starving  because  the  officers  are  secretly  living  in  lux- 
ury, look  out  for  mutiny ! 

The  agitation  to  which  many  vainly  object  is  an 
effort  to  induce  society  to  take  the  second  great  eco- 
nomic step.  The  remedies  which  are  urged  for  social 
ills,  whether  socialism,  or  trades  unionism,  or  single 
taxism,  or  syndicalism,  are  all  more  or  less  intelligent 
attempts  to  solve  the  problem  of  distribution. 

The  second  fact  to  which  I  ask  attention  in  connec- 
tion with  this  widespread  and  deepening  discontent  is 
the  modern  spirit  of  democracy. 

When  the  difference  in  their  possessions  was  only  one 
of  many  differences  between  the  rich  and  the  poor, 

Nineteenth  Century,  February,  1888. 


NEW  PROBLEM  OF  WEALTH  155 

when  the  rich  had  many  wants  of  which  the  poor  knew 
nothing,  when  the  difference  in  education  and  culture 
fixed  a  great  gulf  between  the  two  classes,  when  title 
and  political  power  came  by  birth,  it  seemed  to  both 
classes  that  they  were  made  of  different  kinds  of  clay. 
They  were  different  beings,  differently  endowed;  and 
the  wealth  of  the  one  class  was  as  fitting  as  the  poverty 
of  the  other.  The  ignorant  poor,  therefore,  no  more 
envied  the  rich  then*  riches  than  they  envied  the  birds 
their  wings,  or  kings  their  sceptres.  The  possession  of 
wealth  by  the  few  was,  like  the  divine  right  of  kings, 
a  part  of  the  natural  order  of  things,  an  expression  of 
the  will  of  heaven. 

Now  all  this  is  changed  by  the  spirit  of  democracy, 
which  spirit  is  asserting  itself  not  only  hi  Western 
Europe  but  in  the  very  seats  of  historic  absolutism  — 
Russia,  Turkey,  Persia,  and  China. 

In  our  own  country  we  are  nurtured  on  the  doctrine 
that  "all  men  are  born  free  and  equal,"  which  of  course 
does  not  mean  that  men  are  equal  in  natural  endow- 
ments any  more  than  in  stature,  but  that  men  are  equal 
before  the  law,  and  ought  to  have  equal  opportunities; 
so  that  the  average  man,  instead  of  explaining  why  he 
wants  as  much  as  others,  would  like  an  explanation 
why  others  have  more  than  he.  This  is  a  new  and  most 
significant  attitude  in  the  history  of  the  world. 

A  third  fact  which  must  be  reckoned  with  in  connec- 
tion with  popular  discontent  is  the  general  diffusion  of 
knowledge. 

Not  only  has  our  population  as  a  whole  the  benefit  of 
our  public-school  training,  but  unprecedented  numbers 
are  gaining  a  liberal  education.  The  last  census  shows 
that  in  our  universities,  colleges,  professional,  normal, 
art,  and  music  schools  there  are  395,000  students;  and 


156  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

every  three  or  four  years  they  will  be  replaced  by  in- 
creasing numbers. 

These  men  and  women  are  generally  capable  of 
appreciating  all  that  is  noblest  in  civilization,  and  of 
"coveting  earnestly  the  best  gifts"  both  for  themselves 
and  for  their  fellow  men.  The  great  majority  of  them 
do  not  belong  to  the  wealthy  class,  and  they  are  many 
times  more  numerous  than  the  very  rich.  These  lib- 
erally educated  men  and  women  know  something  of 
history  and  its  lessons,  of  the  danger  of  concentrated 
power  and  of  luxury;  they  have  learned  something  of 
existing  social  conditions  and  their  menace  to  the  wel- 
fare of  the  race.  Probably  most  of  them  have  studied 
political  economy,  and  know  something  of  the  sources, 
the  meaning,  and  the  responsibilities  of  wealth.  Their 
training  has  made  them  capable  not  only  of  a  deep  dis- 
content but  of  an  intelligent  discontent,  which  is  far 
more  dangerous  to  the  existing  order  of  things. 

Moreover,  knowledge  has  given  to  this  class  power. 
In  pulpit  and  press  they  are  to  be  the  educators  of 
public  opinion;  and  in  school  and  college  they  are  to 
mould  the  ideas  of  coming  generations.  The  great 
thinkers  and  writers,  the  great  investigators  and 
revealers  of  truth,  who  shape  religious,  ethical,  polit- 
ical, social,  and  economic  doctrines  are  not  as  a  rule 
possessers  of  wealth. 

Evidently  the  ancient  monopoly  of  knowledge  by  the 
few  and  the  rich  has  been  destroyed,  and  its  inde- 
structible power  has  passed  forever  to  the  people. 

There  is  one  more  significant  fact  which  must  be 
remembered  in  connection  with  popular  discontent, 
namely,  that  political  power  has  passed  from  the  few 
to  the  many. 

It  is  true  that  the  political  bosses  and  their  hench- 


NEW  PROBLEM  OF  WEALTH     157 

men  have  for  years  tricked  the  people  and  filched  their 
power,  but  as  Lincoln  said:  "You  can  fool  all  of  the 
people  some  of  the  time,  and  some  of  the  people  all  of 
the  time,  but  you  can't  fool  all  of  the  people  all  of  the 
time."  Demos  has  been  asleep,  but  he  has  become 
restless  in  his  slumbers  and  is  arousing  himself;  and 
when  the  giant  is  fully  awake  he  will  soon  be  fully 
free. 

Until  modern  times  political  power,  the  power  of 
knowledge,  and  the  power  of  wealth  have  all  belonged 
to  one  small  class;  and  this  threefold  cord  enabled  the 
few  to  bind  the  many  in  an  almost  unbroken  servitude. 
Such  concentration  of  power  created  a  condition  of 
stable  equilibrium.  To-day  the  power  of  wealth  is  hi 
the  hands  of  the  few,  while  political  power  and  that 
which  comes  from  education  are  both  popularized. 

This,  I  submit,  creates  a  condition  of  unstable  equilib- 
rium. 

We  are  building  a  leaning  tower  of  Pisa  with  an 
indefinite  number  of  courses  to  be  added.  If  we  con- 
tinue building  on  existing  lines,  the  time  will  certainly 
come  when  we  shall  pass  the  centre  of  gravity  and  pre- 
cipitate a  catastrophe.  There  cannot  possibly  be  an  in- 
creasing concentration  of  staggering  wealth,  increasing 
popular  wants,  increasing  popular  discontent,  and  in- 
creasing popular  consciousness  of  power  without  reach- 
ing a  crisis. 

As  President  Schurman  said  in  the  address  already 
referred  to:  "The  majority  must  be  reasonably  satis- 
fied with  our  institutions,  or  our  institutions  will  be 
modified  to  meet  then*  views  and  sentiments."  The 
increasing  dissatisfaction  with  the  existing  social 
system  is  partially  recorded  in  the  rapidly  growing 
socialist  vote. 


158  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

SOCIALIST  VOTE  IN   UNITED  STATES 

In  1888 2,068 

1892 21,175 

1896 36,503 

1900 127,553 

1904 408,230 

1908 420,890 

1912 898,119 

There  are  many  others  who  are  thoroughly  dissatis- 
fied with  the  existing  system  who,  like  myself,  do  not 
believe  that  socialism  is  the  way  out. 

In  my  judgment  the  true  solution  of  the  problem  of 
wealth  (which  will  be  discussed  in  a  later  chapter)  must 
be  found  and  generally  accepted,  or  one  of  two  things 
must  follow  —  either  the  wealth  of  the  nation  will  be 
made  the  wealth  of  the  people  by  a  radical  change  in 
the  fundamental  laws  of  the  land,  or  the  rich  will  be 
despoiled  by  violence  —  that  is,  I  believe  that  the 
penalty  of  failure  will  be  socialism  or  anarchy. 

If  it  should  prove  to  be  the  latter,  it  may  be  another 
Reign  of  Terror  under  the  forms  of  law,  or  the  blind 
fury  of  unorganized  mobs  like  those  of  1877,  immensely 
magnified,  when  after  long  industrial  depression  we  had 
bloody  riots  and  incendiary  fires  which  destroyed  not 
less  than  a  hundred  million  dollars  worth  of  property, 
and  ten  States  reaching  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific 
called  on  the  President  of  the  United  States  for  troops 
to  help  restore  order,  or  it  may  be  the  organized  violence 
of  syndicalism  which  scoffs  at  the  state  and  all  of  the 
institutions  of  organized  society. 

The  Hon.  E.  J.  Phelps,  professor  of  law  at  Yale 
University,  and  Minister  to  Great  Britain  under  Presi- 
dent Cleveland,  wrote  in  a  letter  to  William  E.  Dodge 
(I  quote  from  memory) :  "  I  hope  for  the  ultimate  tri- 
umph of  the  Republic,  but  not  until  after  a  period  of 
anarchy,  followed  by  the  man  on  horseback." 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE  NEW  RACE  PROBLEM 

To  AMERICANS  the  subject  of  this  chapter  suggests 
the  problem  of  the  Negro  or  that  of  the  immigrant,  or 
both.  But  one  who  would  make  any  considerable  prog- 
ress toward  grasping  the  real  significance,  or  the  true 
solution,  of  this  problem  must,  like  John  Wesley,  "  take 
the  world  for  his  parish." 

Race  antipathy,  from  which  arises  the  race  problem, 
though  primitive  and  savage  in  origin  has  not  been  out- 
grown by  civilization,  nor  is  it  always  overcome  by  the 
broaden  ing  influences  of  culture.  Plato  congratulated 
the  Athenians  because  they  beyond  all  other  Greeks, 
had  shown  in  their  relations  to  Persia  "a  pure  and 
heartfelt  hatred  of  the  foreign  nature." 

I.  The  race  problem,  instead  of  disappearing  with 
the  increasing  enlightenment  of  the  world,  has  become 
distinctly  more  complicated  in  recent  times. 

For  a  thousand  years  Asiatics  had  made  conquests  on 
European  soil.  For  two  centuries  they  had  held  Russia 
in  as  complete  subjection  as  Britons  now  hold  India. 
But  since  the  Turks  recoiled  from  the  walls  of  Vienna 
hi  1687  the  East  has  been  powerless  before  the  armies 
of  the  West.  For  two  hundred  years  and  more  she 
has  been  despoiled  by  European  nations.  The  story 
is  told  by  Matthew  Arnold  in  four  lines : 

"The  East  bowed  low  before  the  blast, 
In  patient  deep  disdain; 
She  let  the  legions  thunder  past, 
Then  plunged  in  thought  again." 

159 


160  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

Europe  was  called  by  Divine  Providence  to  rule 
Asia,  of  course.  This  was  an  obvious  part  of  "the 
white  man's  burden."  The  Great  Powers  were  com- 
placently preparing  to  divide  China  among  themselves 
when  suddenly  a  little  Asiatic  David  brought  to  his 
knees  a  mighty  European  Goliath,  and  yellow  men  in 
China,  and  brown  men  in  India,  and  black  men  in 
Africa  were  thrilled  by  Japan's  success  over  Russia,  for 
it  was  the  first  time  in  two  hundred  years  that  the  arms 
of  Asiatics  had  triumphed  over  those  of  Europeans.  It 
was  the  victory  of  every  dark  race  in  the  world,  for 
the  white  man  had  bullied  them  all.  The  spell  of  ages 
was  broken;  and  men  who  had  cringed  before  abuse 
were  aroused  to  self-assertion  by  a  new  hope  begotten 
of  victory. 

There  was  a  deepening  of  race  consciousness  which 
uttered  itself  in  the  cry:  "China  for  the  Chinese!" 
and  "India  for  the  Hindus!"  Even  the  long-suffering 
black  man  caught  the  contagion  and  answered  the  call 
of  Asia  with  "Africa  for  the  Africans!" 

But  quite  apart  from  the  Russo-Japanese  war  and  its 
issue,  the  conditions  of  the  new  civilization,  which  are 
forcing  the  nations  into  closer  relations,  were  sure  to 
create  increasing  friction  and  to  compel  a  new  study  of 
this  old  problem. 

There  are  people,  not  a  few,  who  get  on  admirably  so 
long  as  they  live  on  opposite  sides  of  the  town,  but  who 
quarrel  if  they  try  to  live  under  the  same  roof.  The 
world  is  becoming  one  house. 

Many  a  husband  and  wife  who  have  been  divorced 
might  have  remained  excellent  friends  if  they  had  never 
married;  but  on  coming  into  the  closest  physical  re- 
lations they  discovered  that  there  was  no  corresponding 
oneness  of  spiritual  life;  and  it  was  found  that  physical 


NEW  RACE  PROBLEM  161 

propinquity,  without  a  like  closeness  of  sympathy,  of 
tastes,  of  ideas  and  purposes,  results  in  friction  and 
repulsion. 

Now  the  conditions  of  modern  travel  and  traffic  are 
bringing  the  nations  into  close  physical  contact  while 
in  other  respects  they  are  far  apart.  The  world  is 
being  made  one  commercially  more  rapidly  than  it  is 
being  made  one  spiritually;  hence  increasing  friction 
and  race  antagonism. 

Again,  these  same  conditions  of  modern  civilization 
make  it  possible  to  transport  cheap  labour  from  one 
country  to  another  where  it  can  command  a  much 
higher  wage.  The  coloured  races  all  have  a  much  lower 
standard  of  living  than  the  white,  which  enables  them 
to  underbid  the  lower  grades  of  white  labour,  and  to 
grow  rich  on  wages  which  would  starve  a  white  man. 
Thus  interracial  competition  La  the  labour  market  adds 
new  fuel  to  the  ancient  flame  of  race  antipathy.  The 
same  remark  is  applicable,  of  course,  to  different  white 
peoples  who  have  different  standards  of  living. 

Interracial  competition  in  manufactures  also  is 
likely  further  to  embitter  race  feeling.  Why  should 
not  Asia  adopt  Western  industrial  methods  just  as 
Japan  adopted  Western  military  methods,  and  with  a 
like  purpose?  Indeed  this  is  already  being  done. 
Factories,  equipped  with  the  best  machinery  run  by 
steam  and  electricity,  and  directed  by  native  experts 
trained  in  Europe  and  America,  are  rapidly  multiply- 
ing not  only  in  Japan  but  also  in  China  and  India, 
where  plenty  of  cheap  labour  and  raw  material  are 
available.  Says  a  writer  in  the  Indian  Review  (Madras) : 
"In  one  respect,  the  Orient  really  is  menacing  the 
West,  and  so  earnest  and  open-minded  is  Asia  that  no 
pretence  or  apology  whatever  is  made  about  it,  nor  is 


162  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

any  effort  put  forth  to  hide  it  from  the  occidental. 
The  Easterner  has  thrown  down  the  industrial  gaunt- 
let, and  from  now  on  Asia  is  destined  to  witness  a 
progressively  intense  trade  warfare,  the  occidental 
scrambling  to  retain  his  hold  on  the  markets  of  the 
East  and  the  oriental  endeavouring  to  beat  him  in  a 
battle  in  which  heretofore  he  has  been  an  easy  victor." 

The  time  might  easily  come  when  manufacturers  in 
the  United  States  would  urge  the  necessity  of  cheap 
Asiatic  labour  on  this  side  of  the  Pacific  to  compete 
successfully  with  cheap  Asiatic  labour  on  the  other 
side. 

II.  It  can  be  shown,  moreover,  that  without  doubt 
there  will  be  a  further  complication  of  the  race  prob- 
lem in  the  not  remote  future. 

There  is  in  China  an  appalling  death  rate,  and  a  still 
higher  birth  rate,  the  increase  in  population  according 
to  Dr.  Timothy  Richards1  being  about  4,000,000  a 
year.  The  introduction  of  Western  medicine,  hygiene, 
and  sanitation  will  greatly  reduce  the  death  rate. 
Scientific  sanitation  alone  is  likely  to  cut  the  death  rate 
in  two  in  the  middle,  for  China  is  in  the  condition  of 
mediaeval  Europe  touching  the  need  of  these  reforms. 
In  addition  to  bringing  the  ravages  of  pestilence  under 
control,  international  commerce  and  railway  transpor- 
tation will  make  impossible  the  terrible  famines  in 
which  so  many  millions  have  perished  in  the  past. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  rising  standard  of  living  and 
the  incoming  of  machinery,  with  its  tax  on  the  ner- 
vous system,  will  reduce  the  birth  rate;  but  it  must  be 
observed  that  the  causes  modifying  the  birth  rate  will 

'Doctor  Richards  is  an  influential  missionary  who  has  been  made  a 
mandarin  of  high  rank,  and  has  for  years  been  an  official  adviser  of 
the  Imperial  Government. 


NEW  RACE  PROBLEM  163 

operate  only  slowly  with  the  evolution  of  the  new  civil- 
ization, while  those  which  are  destined  to  reduce  the 
death  rate  will  be  largely  under  the  control  of  govern- 
ment and  will  operate  widely  and  rapidly  on  official 
action. 

This  warrants  the  expectation  that  for  a  period  of 
years  the  rate  of  increase  in  the  population  will  be 
materially  accelerated  with  a  growing  tendency  to 
emigration. 

Moreover,  this  tendency  to  emigrate  will  be  further 
stimulated  by  the  introduction  of  machinery  and  other 
provisions  of  modern  civilization  which  for  the  time 
being  will  throw  great  numbers  out  of  employment. 
For  instance,  the  capital  city  of  one  of  the  provinces, 
a  few  years  ago,  introduced  public  water  works. 
When  they  were  opened  the  entire  force  of  water-car- 
riers suddenly  found  themselves  without  a  job.  Of 
course  it  is  well  known  that  in  the  long  run  much 
machinery  gives  more  work  than  it  takes  away,  but 
the  readjustment,  which  is  necessarily  slow,  is  always 
attended  in  a  populous  country  with  much  suffering. 

Still  further,  Confucianism  lays  upon  every  adherent 
the  duty  of  making  yearly  offerings  at  the  graves  of  his 
ancestors,  which  forbids  distant  migrations.  We  are 
told  that  nearly  all  of  the  Chinese  outside  of  China  are 
from  Canton.  The  great  bulk  of  China's  400,000,000 
is  as  yet  a  fixed  population.  But  while  this  vast 
reservoir  of  humanity  is  rapidly  rising,  the  dam  which 
restrains  it  is  being  weakened.  Both  the  religion  and 
the  science  of  the  West  are  undermining  the  super- 
stitions of  the  Chinese,  the  railways  are  accustoming 
them  to  travel,  and  as  this  enormous  population  becomes 
increasingly  mobile,  a  tremendous  outward  pressure  will 
apparently  make  a  vast  emigration  inevitable. 


164  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

As  cultural  civilization  rises  the  birth  rate  falls. 
With  the  increasing  demands  made  on  the  nervous 
system,  less  vitality  goes  to  the  setting  up  of  new  lives. 
Under  the  operation  of  this  law  the  world  will,  no  doubt, 
ultimately  reach  a  balance  between  birth  rate  and  death 
rate.  But  it  will  be  many  generations  before  this  bal- 
ance is  attained  in  China  where  the  most  sacred  duty 
of  life  is  to  multiply  offspring.  We  may,  therefore, 
expect  that  for  many  yars  to  come,  and  especially  until 
China  has  readjusted  herself  to  the  new  civilization, 
there  will  be  a  great  Chinese  emigration.  There  is  a 
"Yellow  Sea"  of  humanity,  vast,  pent,  and  pressing, 
capable  of  sending  across  the  Pacific  a  human  tidal 
wave  mighty  enough  to  submerge  our  continent  and 
to  overwhelm  our  civilization. 

In  this  connection  let  me  again  remind  the  reader 
that  the  comparatively  unoccupied  lands  of  the  world, 
Alaska,  Canada,  the  western  half  of  the  United  States, 
South  America,  New  Zealand,  Australia,  Siberia,  and 
South  Africa,  are  all  hi  the  possession  of  the  white  race, 
and  that  all  of  these  countries  except  the  last  named 
look  out  on  the  Pacific. 

As  a  crutch  to  comprehension,  that  we  may  gam  some 
idea  of  China's  swarming  millions,  let  us  suppose  that 
her  population  continues  to  gain  for  a  century  at  the 
present  rate,  without  the  expected  acceleration.  Let 
us  suppose  further  that  these  Pacific  lands,  now  in  the 
possession  of  white  men,  are  entirely  depopulated,  and 
that  the  inhabitants  of  China  in  the  year  2,000  are 
evenly  distributed  throughout  their  own  country  and 
these  other  lands  rimming  the  Pacific.  The  United 
States  would  then  have  a  population  of  115,500,000,  all 
Chinese  (present  population  91,272,000),  the  Dominion 
of  Canada  would  have  hi  round  numbers  125,000,000 


NEW  RACE  PROBLEM  165 

Chinese  (present  population  5,371,000),  Siberia  would 
have  158,000,000  Chinese  (present  population  7,878,000) 
South  America  would  have  250,000,000  Chinese  (pres- 
ent population  40,000,000),  New  Zealand  would  have 
3,400,000  Chinese  (present  population  1,048,000),  and 
Australia  would'have  98,000,000  Chinese  (present  popu- 
lation 2,974,000). 

But,  says  the  thoughtful  reader,  great  and  dense 
populations  grow  at  a  falling,  not  at  a  constant,  rate  of 
increase.  That  is  true.  Good  reasons,  however,  have 
been  given  for  expecting  a  rising  rate  of  increase  in  the 
growth  of  Chinese  population  for  some  generations  to 
come.  But  let  us  set  those  considerations  aside  and 
be  very  conservative.  We  will  suppose  that  the  aver- 
age rate  of  increase  for  this  century  falls  one  half.  The 
present  rate  of  increase,  according  to  Doctor  Richards, 
is  1  per  cent,  annually,  which  is  only  about  one  half 
our  own.  If  the  annual  increase  should  average  for 
the  century  only  one  half  of  1  per  cent.  —  about  one 
quarter  of  our  own  —  China  could  still  preserve  her 
present  density  of  population  and  send  out  2,000,000 
emigrants  every  year,  or  a  surplus  of  200,000,000 
during  the  century.  That  number  would  be  more 
than  sufficient  to  double  the  present  population  of  each 
of  the  Pacific  lands  occupied  by  white  men.  That  is, 
if  200,000,000  Chinese  were  distributed  throughout 
Canada,  the  United  States,  South  America,  New  Zea- 
land, Australia,  and  Siberia,  it  would  be  sufficient  to 
place  a  Chinese  alongside  of  every  human  being  now 
living  in  these  countries,  and  would  still  leave  more  than 
50,000,000  undisposed  of. 

What  has  been  said  of  China  is  more  or  less  appli- 
cable to  all  Asia.  As  was  shown  in  a  preceding  chapter 
the  industrial  revolution  is  to  encircle  the  earth. 


166  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

Orientals  are  determined  by  the  establishment  of  manu- 
factures to  supply  their  own  markets  and  to  dispute 
with  occidentals  the  markets  of  the  world.  This  will 
pulverize  what  Professor  Bagehot  called  the  "cake  of 
custom."  It  will  shatter  fossilized  Astatic  society. 
Modern  industry  remade  Europe  and  the  United 
States  during  the  nineteenth  century.  Notwithstand- 
ing they  were  the  most  progressive  countries  in  the 
world,  the  introduction  of  machinery  caused  a  pro- 
found revolution  in  both.  Imagine  then,  if  you  can, 
the  changes  which  the  new  industry  will  compel  among 
people  who  have  not  moved  for  thousands  of  years. 
The  new  Japan  affords  an  example.  As  one  of  her 
sons  said:  "Nothing  remains  the  same  except  the 
natural  scenery."  This  turning  and  overturning  in 
Asia,  which  will  include  the  emptying  of  many  tens  of 
thousands  of  villages  into  the  cities,  will  uproot  the 
people  and,  so  to  speak,  mobilize  nations.  It  will  be 
long  before  orientals,  with  their  child  marriages,  learn 
to  restrict  the  birth  rate;  and  with  the  same  economic 
causes  at  work  which,  during  the  past  century,  created 
and  sustained  European  emigration,  there  must  be 
during  this  century  a  tremendous  outward  pressure  in 
all  Asia,  already  illustrated  in  Japan. 

The  destination  of  this  vast  migration  would  nat- 
urally be  the  comparatively  unoccupied  lands  of  the 
white  race.  It  is  evident,  therefore,  that  with  the  white 
and  coloured  peoples  facing  each  other  across  the 
Pacific,  the  world  must  reckon  with  a  race  problem  of 
the  first  magnitude. 

Of  course,  self-defence  is  the  first  law  of  nature,  but 
the  policy  of  the  United  States  touching  the  race  prob- 
lem should  be  dictated  by  something  more  than  self- 
interest.  The  welfare  of  humanity,  including  orientals 


NEW  RACE  PROBLEM 


167 


themselves,  is  concerned.  As  the  race  problem  is  a 
world  problem,  so  there  ought  to  be  a  race  policy  which 
is  a  world  policy,  adapted  to  every  race  and  nation,  and 
adopted  by  all. 

Before  attempting  any  discussion  of  such  a  policy, 
which  will  be  done  hi  a  later  chapter,  let  us  determine, 
if  we  can : 

III.  Precisely  what  the  race  problem  is.  Anthro- 
pologists have  attempted  to  divide  mankind  into  races 
according  to  certain  distinctive  peculiarities  such  as 
colour,  nose,  teeth,  and  skull;  but  with  all  then*  investi- 
gations they  have  arrived  only  at  a  "reasoned  igno- 
rance." There  is  no  scientific  basis  for  such  division, 
but  for  convenience  the  word  race  will  be  used  as  in 
the  following  table,  which  is  based  on  estimates  by 
John  Bartholomew,  F.  R.  G.  S.,  revised  to  1909. 


RACE 

LOCATION 

NUMBER 

Indo-Germanic  or  Aryan 

Europe,  Persia,  etc. 

625,000,000 

(white) 

Mongolian  or  Turanian 

Greater  part  of  Asia 

630,000,000 

(yellow  and  brown) 

Semitic  or  Hamitic 

North  Africa, 

65,000,000 

(white) 

Arabia 

Negro  and  Bantu 

Central  Africa 

150,000,000 

(black) 

Hottentot  and  Bushman 

South  Africa 

150,000 

(black) 

Malay  and  Polynesian 

Australasia  and 

35,000,000 

(brown) 

Polynesia 

American  Indian 

North  and  South 

15,000,000 

(red) 

America 

Total 

1,520,150,000 

For  3,000  years  the  most  enterprising  and  aggres- 
sive peoples  of  the  great  Aryan  race,  under  many  dif- 


168  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

ferent  names  and  at  different  times,  crossed  from  con- 
tinental Europe  to  Great  Britain.  There  these  diverse 
but  related  white  stocks  slowly  blended  into  the  Eng- 
lishman. 

When  the  coloured  races  were  all  on  the  distant  and 
dim  horizon  of  his  thought  and  the  race  problem  as  we 
now  see  it  had  not  yet  risen  above  that  horizon,  it  was 
quite  natural  that  to  the  Englishman  (himself  an  ex- 
ceedingly fine  blend)  the  final  solution  of  racial  dif- 
ferences should  be  the  reduction  of  all  mankind  to  a 
single  racial  type.  This  idea  was  naturally  brought 
to  America,  and  until  recently  was  rather  taken  for 
granted,  especially  at  the  North:  and  dissent  from  this 
view  was  supposed  to  indicate  more  or  less  race  preju- 
dice. But  my  study  of  the  subject  has  led  me  to  a  very 
different  conclusion;  and,  if  I  may  say  so,  instead  of  any 
feeling  of  repulsion  toward  coloured  races,  I  am  con- 
sciously attracted  to  them  when  I  see  Chinese,  Japanese, 
Hindus,  or  Negroes,  due  doubtless  to  my  early  training. 

In  my  judgment,  the  reduction  of  all  the  races  to  a 
single  type  would  not  be  possible,  even  if  it  were  de- 
sirable; and  again,  it  would  not  be  desirable,  even  if  it 
were  possible. 

1.  There  are  half  a  dozen  obstacles  to  universal 
amalgamation  which  would  be  decisive  even  if  race 
prejudice  were  wholly  overcome. 

Difference  of  civilization  is  an  obstacle,  including  as 
it  does  conflicting  ideas  and  ideals  of  life,  strange  cus- 
toms, habits,  foods,  and  a  thousand  other  things  so 
necessary  to  the  comfort  of  the  native  and  so  fatal  to  the 
comfort  of  the  foreigner. 

Difference  of  language  is  another  obstacle.  Com- 
mon speech  is  necessary  to  common  sympathy,  com- 
mon understanding,  and  common  action. 


NEW  RACE  PROBLEM  169 

Difference  of  religion  is  a  greater  obstacle  than  either 
of  the  preceding.  It  is  his  religion  which  has  kept  the 
Jew  a  Jew  for  thousands  of  years.  He  has  made  him- 
self at  home  among  all  peoples;  he  has  adjusted  him- 
self to  all  civilizations;  he  has  learned  to  speak  all 
languages;  he  has  become  a  patriot  in  every  nation, 
but  as  long  as  he  has  kept  his  faith  it  has  kept  him, 
separate  and  peculiar.  When  he  has  lost  his  faith  or 
changed  it,  he  has  been  absorbed. 

The  above-named  obstacles  may  be  overcome  and 
have  been,  but  the  following  are  permanent  and  in- 
superable. Differences  of  climate  make  impossible 
the  universal  distribution  of  the  several  races  without 
which  universal  amalgamation  could  not  take  place. 
In  a  large  part  of  Africa,  the  Negro  by  many  centuries 
of  adjustment  has  become  immune  to  climatic  in- 
fluences which  are  usually  fatal  to  white  men.  The 
same  is  true  of  tropical  peoples  in  general.  The  idea 
has  been  abandoned  that  the  tropics  can  be  permanently 
colonized  by  the  white  race. 

Great  distances  are  absolutely  prohibitive  of  the 
amalgamation  of  different  peoples.  With  modern 
facilities  of  transportation  we  may  get  a  quarter  of  a 
million  Italian  immigrants  in  a  single  year;  and  in 
time  their  descendants  will  be  absorbed  by  the  Ameri- 
can people;  but  this  migration  has  not  even  the  re- 
motest tendency  to  amalgamate  the  35,000,000  people 
who  live  and  will  continue  to  live  in  Italy  with  the 
91,000,000  people  who  live  in  America.  Italy  could 
send  us  500,000  every  year  and  yet  keep  her  own  num- 
bers intact. 

Vast  numbers  cannot  migrate,  and,  therefore,  cannot 
come  into  contact  with  great  numbers  at  a  distance. 

During  historic  times  scores  of  peoples  have  dis- 


170  THE  NEW  WORLD -LIFE 

appeared  utterly.  Some  have  been  carried  away  cap- 
tive and  lost;  some  have  been  scattered;  some  have 
been  absorbed,  and  some  have  been  destroyed  by 
sword,  pestilence,  and  famine.  It  is  evident  that  the 
larger  and  more  consolidated  the  racial  mass,  the  more 
difficult  it  must  be  to  eliminate  it  in  any  of  the  above- 
mentioned  ways.  It  is  impossible  to  carry  away  cap- 
tive 400,000,000  Chinese  or  any  other  large  body  of 
people.  It  is  impossible  to  lose  them,  or  to  scatter 
them,  or  to  absorb  them,  or  to  massacre  them.  Nor  is 
it  conceivable  that  any  great  people  could  under  modern 
conditions  be  annihilated  by  famine  or  pestilence. 
And  there  is  not  the  remotest  indication  that  the 
Chinese,  or  any  other  multitudinous  people,  contem- 
plate race  suicide. 

Doubtless  there  are  now  existing  remnants  of  peoples 
which  are  destined  to  disappear,  but  the  fact  which  con- 
cerns us  is  that  there  are  several  great  races  whose 
numbers  and  vigour  stamp  them  with  permanence. 

We  know  that  in  times  far  remote  barbarous  peoples 
often  migrated.  Many  of  them  were  nomadic;  many 
were  driven  out  by  enemies;  many,  having  little  to 
leave  behind,  were  attracted  to  more  civilized  regions 
by  the  hope  of  spoil.  Conquered  peoples  who  were 
neither  driven  out  nor  slaughtered  were  overlaid  by 
their  conquerors.  Both  peoples  occupying  the  same 
territory,  the  two  racial  stocks  interpenetrated,  and  in 
process  of  tune  coalesced  by  reason  of  constant  con- 
tact. 

Knowing  that  hundreds  of  different  peoples  have 
thus  blended  hi  the  past,  without  reflecting  on  changed 
conditions  we  imagine  that  a  general  blend  of  the  exist- 
ing races  may  take  place  in  the  long  future.  We  forget 
how  insignificant  in  point  of  numbers  were  ancient 


NEW  RACE  PROBLEM  171 

peoples  when  compared  with  modern  nations  and 
races.  According  to  the  estimates  of  Bodio,  the  entire 
population  of  the  earth  at  the  death  of  the  Emperor 
Augustus  was  only  54,000,000,  and  of  course  much 
smaller  in  the  earliest  historic  times.  If  we  may  rely 
on  Bodio 's  estimates,  there  are  three  times  as  many 
black  men,  twelve  times  as  many  brown  and  yellow 
men,  and  twelve  times  as  many  white  men  hi  the  world 
to-day  as  existed  on  the  entire  globe  in  the  time  of 
Augustus.  That  is,  these  three  races  alone  could  fur- 
nish population  for  twenty-seven  such  worlds  as  then 
existed. 

Instead  of  many  small  racial  stocks,  numbering  each 
a  few  hundred  thousands  or  at  most  a  few  millions,  we 
now  have  a  few  races,  numbering  from  scores  of  mil- 
lions to  hundreds  of  millions  each.  Evidently  under 
conditions  so  radically  changed,  the  causes  which  once 
reduced  whole  peoples  of  different  stocks  to  a  single 
blend  are  no  longer  operative. 

In  the  case  of  the  six  great  divisions  of  mankind  all 
of  the  obstacles  to  the  blending  of  races,  which  were 
discussed  above,  exist  hi  superlative  measure.  Each 
race  numbers  many  millions.  They  are  separated 
by  great  distances,  which  though  easily  overcome  by 
individual  travellers  are  impossible  to  vast  multitudes. 
They  live  in  climates  which  in  some  instances  are  fatal 
to  other  races.  Their  civilizations  are  on  different  and 
divergent  planes.  Their  languages  are  as  unlike  as  their 
skins;  and  their  religions  are  mutually  antagonistic. 

We  can  better  appreciate  how  conclusive  are  these 
considerations  when  we  see  how  completely  conditions, 
much  more  favourable,  have  failed  to  produce  a  single 
racial  type. 

In  Austria-Hungary,  peoples  having  different  strains 


172  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

of  blood  and  speaking  different  tongues  have  lived  in 
adjoining  regions  for  hundreds  of  years  without  amal- 
gamating, though  they  all  belong  to  the  white  race. 

In  Switzerland  we  see  precisely  the  same  conditions 
with  the  same  result. 

In  Turkey,  peoples  separated  by  blood,  language,  and 
religion  have  lived  side  by  side  for  centuries  and  still 
remain  as  separate  and  distinct  as  they  were  hundreds 
of  years  ago,  though  they  too  are  white. 

The  Scotch  and  English  have  occupied  different  parts 
of  the  same  snug  little  island  for  a  thousand  years  or  so. 
For  some  hundreds  of  years  they  have  had  the  same 
religion,  the  same  language,  the  same  civilization,  and 
the  same  government,  and  yet  they  remain  two  distinct 
peoples,  though  both  belong  to  the  white  race.  It  is 
true  there  have  been  numerous  marriages  between  them, 
but  it  is  quite  safe  to  say  that  there  are  many  more 
Englishmen  without  Scotch  blood  and  many  more 
Scotchmen  without  English  blood  to-day  than  there 
were  100  years  ago. 

In  Peru  there  are  only  about  3,000,000  inhabitants. 
When  the  Spaniards  conquered  the  Incas  the  num- 
bers involved  were  small;  the  two  races  occupied  not 
adjoining  territories  but  the  same;  the  climate  was  not 
hostile  to  either  race;  the  Indians  accepted  the  religion 
of  the  Spaniards;  there  seems  to  have  been  no  objec- 
tion on  the  part  of  either  race  to  the  mixture  of  the  two; 
and  yet  after  nearly  400  years,  though  their  blood  has 
been  mingled  in  all  possible  proportions,  the  few  whites 
have  not  yet  been  absorbed;  there  is  pure  blood  on 
either  side  of  the  various  admixtures.  How  then  shall 
625,000,000  white  peoples,  living  in  Europe  and  in 
North  and  South  America,  mix  with  630,000,000  yellow 
and  brown  peoples,  living  in  Asia?  And  how  shall 


NEW  RACE  PROBLEM  173 

these  1,255,000,000  amalgamate  with  150,000,000  black 
peoples  living  in  Africa,  not  to  mention  65,000,000 
Semitic  peoples  and  50,000,000  Polynesians  and  In- 
dians living  on  opposite  sides  of  the  earth?  And  if  in 
a  single  country,  after  nearly  400  years,  there  are  three 
or  four  times  as  many  different  types  as  there  were  when 
the  process  of  amalgamation  began,  how.  many  eter- 
nities would  it  take  the  populations  of  the  globe,  in- 
habiting different  continents,  separated  by  oceans, 
mountains,  and  deserts,  to  reduce  their  many  types  to 
one?  Even  if  that  were  a  consummation  devoutly  to 
be  wished,  it  would  be  physically  impossible  of  accom- 
plishment, for  the  existing  races  would  propagate  their 
respective  kinds  more  rapidly  than  interracial  marriages 
could  take  place. 

Beyond  a  peradventure,  in  the  several  great  divisions 
of  mankind  enumerated  above,  we  now  see  before  us 
the  permanent  elements  of  the  final  world  mosaic. 

2.  But  if  the  fusion  of  the  few  great  races  were  en- 
tirely practicable,  it  would  not  seem  to  be  desirable. 

Suppose  the  flowers,  endless  in  variety  of  form,  colour 
and  tint,  could  be  reduced  to  a  single  variety,  a  com- 
promise in  form,  a  blend  in  colour;  would  the  world  be 
any  more  beautiful  for  it? 

If  the  different  breeds  of  horses,  adapted  to  different 
uses,  could  be  blended  into  a  single  complex  hybrid 
would  it  be  a  gain? 

If  the  vast  variety  of  gifts  now  distributed  among  the 
members  of  the  white  race  could  hi  the  course  of  time 
be  shaken  up  together,  so  to  speak,  and  evenly  dis- 
tributed among  the  members  of  some  future  generation, 
so  that  each  should  have  the  same  gifts  and  graces  as 
every  other,  reducing  all  to  a  dead  level  of  uniformity, 
would  it  improve  the  race  and  advance  civilization? 


174  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

Why  should  there  be  an  endless  variety  in  every 
species  below  man,  whether  vegetable  or  animal,  and 
only  one  kind  of  man? 

The  conception  is  in  conflict  with  the  whole  plan  of 
creation.  The  law  of  the  universe  itself  is  "  One  from 
many,"  as  the  etymology  of  the^word  indicates  —  dif- 
fering worlds  and  systems  turned  into  one;  not  the  one- 
ness of  identity,  of  mere  repetition,  but  the  oneness  of 
coordination;  not  unison  but  harmony. 

The  law  of  progress  everywhere  is  increasing  dif- 
ferentiation with  integration.  Is  it  to  be  supposed 
that  after  following  this  law  or  method  in  all  the  stages 
of  creation,  as  made  known  to  us,  God  abandons  it 
when  he  reaches  the  crown  of  all  his  works  —  the  final 
civilization? 

Why  should  the  Creator  have  occupied  some  hun- 
dreds of  thousands  of  years  in  developing  these  differ- 
ences, if  he  intends  to  have  them  cancelled  by  man? 
If  we  recognize  any  plan  in  creation,  we  must  accept 
such  a  differentiation  of  the  human  family  as  an  ex- 
pression of  the  divine  purpose,  infinitely  wise  and 
benevolent.  And  it  behooves  us  as  colabourers 
together  with  God  to  find  that  purpose,  if  possible,  that 
we  may  work  with  him  and  not  against  him. 

This  conclusion  affords  not  the  slightest  excuse  for 
race  antipathy.  The  experience  of  mankind  has  con- 
vinced all  peoples  that  close  consanguinity  must  be  a 
bar  to  marriage;  and  scientific  observation  seems  likely 
to  show  that  the  mixture  of  races  most  widely  diver- 
gent is  perhaps  hardly  less  a  violation  of  nature.  But 
there  is  in  this  fact  no  reason  why  there  should  not  be 
as  genuine  respect  and  esteem  and  fellowship  between 
the  races  as  between  brother  and  sister;  no  reason 
why  the  spirit  of  brotherhood  which  obtains  in  the 


NEW  RACE  PROBLEM  175 

home  should  not  be  extended  to  the  family  of  nations 
and  races. 

The  race  problem,  then,  is  not  to  reduce  all  races  to 
a  single  type,  thus  silencing  the  discords  which  have 
made  so  much  of  the  past  hideous,  but  rather  to  per- 
fect each  note  and  tune  them  all  for  heaven's  harmony 
of  brotherhood  on  earth. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE  NEW  PROBLEM  OF  THE  INDIVIDUAL  AND 
SOCIETY 

IT  is  an  old  debate,  on  either  side  of  which  have  been 
ranged  emperors  and  kings,  statesmen  and  philoso- 
phers, revolutionists,  armies,  and  whole  nations  — 
what  is  the  real  goal  of  civilization,  the  true  aim  of 
government  —  society  or  the  individual? 

Doctor  Crozier,  Bishop  of  Down  and  Connor,  says: 
"All  political  schemes  whatever,  whether  they  be 
practical  or  speculative,  have  consciously  or  uncon- 
sciously as  then*  object,  one  or  other  of  the  following 
ends  —  either  the  order,  symmetry,  and  durability  of 
society  as  a  whole,  or  the  elevation  and  expansion  of  the 
individual  mind.  Those  who  support  the  one,  would 
subordinate  the  enlargement  and  elevation  of  the  in- 
dividual to  the  order  and  symmetry  of  society  as  a 
whole;  those  who  support  the  other,  would  postpone 
the  symmetry  and  order  of  society  to  the  elevation  and 
expansion  of  the  individual.  The  one  would  make 
each  man  a  mere  cog  or  wheel  in  the  vast  organized 
mechanism  of  society,  the  other  would  make  him  con- 
versant with  the  highest  his  nature  is  capable  of,  and 
would  make  room  for  him  to  expand  to  the  utmost 
limit  of  his  being.  Accordingly,  the  watchword  of  the 
one  is  Order,  of  the  other,  Progress;  of  the  one,  Des- 
potism (more  or  less  disguised  perhaps);  of  the  other, 
Liberty.  The  one  would  tighten  the  bonds  that  keep 

176 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  AND  SOCIETY       177 

man  dependent  on  and  subservient  to  man;  the  other 
would  relax  them.  The  one  preaches  a  religion  of 
social  duty;  the  other  of  individual  expansion  and  en- 
largement. Among  recent  political  thinkers,  Comte 
and  Carlyle  have  taken  then*  stand  on  the  one;  Emer- 
son, Mill,  and  Spencer  on  the  other."1 

The  ancients  were  impressed  by  the  importance  and 
power  of  society  as  embodied  in  the  state,  while  mod- 
erns in  general  exalt  the  worth  and  the  rights  of  the 
individual.  Says  Doctor  Mulford:  "The  tendency 
of  the  political  speculation  of  the  old  world,  in  Greek 
and  Roman  thought,  was  to  regard  the  state  as  above 
and  before  the  individual,  so  that  the  existence  of  the 
latter  was  subordinate  and  secondary  —  the  individual 
existed  only  for  the  state,  and  the  state  alone  existed 
as  an  end  in  itself.  There  was  the  assumption  of  a 
necessary  contradiction,  and  the  solution  was  in  the 
negation  of  the  individual.  In  Greece,  the  state  ac- 
knowledged no  moral  and  allowed  no  formal  limitation 
to  its  power.  It  took  upon  itself  the  immediate  and 
exclusive  conduct  of  life.  It  was  to  dispose  of  all,  and 
not  only  to  prescribe  the  avocations  and  regulate  the 
affairs,  but  to  direct  even  the  thoughts  and  affections 
of  men.  It  compelled  the  individual  to  engage  in  public 
pursuits  and  fill  public  offices  and  execute  public  trusts 
in  the  same  manner  as  if  subject  to  a  military  discipline. 

"In  contrast  with  this,  the  tendency  of  modern 
political  speculation,  in  its  abstract  systems,  has  been 
to  regard  the  individual  as  above  and  before  the  state, 
so  that  the  existence  of  the  latter  is  subordinate  and 
secondary  —  the  state  exists  for  the  individual,  and  the 
individual  alone  exists  as  an  end  in  himself."2 

'"Civilization  and  Progress,"  pp.  134,  135. 
'"The  Nation,"  p.  258. 


178  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

In  order  to  reach  a  clear  understanding  of  the  prob- 
lem before  us,  let  us  glance  at  the  truths  emphasized 
by  the  individualist,  and  then  at  those  which  especially 
impress  the  collectivist;  the  coordinate  relations  of  the 
individual  and  society  will  then  be  pointed  out,  together 
with  historic  illustrations  of  the  consequences  of  sacri- 
ficing either  to  the  other;  and  finally  attention  will  be 
called  to  some  new  elements  of  the  problem. 

I.    THE   INDIVIDUAL   VERSUS   SOCIETY 

A  Hindu  lawgiver  said  long  ago:  "Single  is  each 
man  born;  single  he  dieth;  single  he  receiveth  the  re- 
ward of  his  good,  and  single  the  punishment  for  his 
evil  deeds."  Moral  beings  can  never  absorb  one  an- 
other as  drops  of  water  touch  and  coalesce.  However 
closely  men  may  be  attracted  or  forced  together,  and 
however  interlaced  then*  lives,  the  individual  remains 
the  moral  unit  —  the  irreducible  moral  minimum. 
No  human  being  can  by  any  possibility  divest  himself 
of  his  accountability  to  God.  No  oath  of  allegiance  to 
state  or  church  or  secret  order  can  render  him  personally 
irresponsible.  It  follows,  therefore,  that  he  cannot  be 
absorbed  by  the  state  or  by  any  other  organization. 
It  follows  also  that  he  has  certain  rights  which  must 
be  respected.  If  I  have  duties  to  God  from  which 
no  one  can  release  me,  I  have  rights  of  which  no  one 
shall  rob  me.  In  this  conviction  are  rooted  both  civil 
and  religious  liberty. 

Whether  we  base  liberty  on  Christian  ethics,  or  on  a 
principle  of  abstract  right  like  the  French  revolution- 
ary school,  or  on  principles  of  utility  and  experience 
like  John  Stuart  Mill,  the  inestimable  value  of  in- 
dividual liberty  has  been  abundantly  demonstrated 
by  history. 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  AND  SOCIETY       179 

During  the  Middle  Ages  both  Church  and  State 
suppressed  individual  liberty  and  therefore  repressed 
and  oppressed  the  individual.  But  when  in  the  Ger- 
man Reformation  the  right  of  private  judgment  was 
won  there  was  a  rapid  development  of  individualism 
and  of  civil  and  religious  liberty.  This  movement  cul- 
minated in  the  nineteenth  century;  and  it  is  no  mere 
coincidence  that  this  most  individualistic  century  of 
history  has  contributed  incomparably  more  to  the  prog- 
ress of  civilization  than  any  other.  Moreover,  during 
this  most  individualistic  age  the  most  individualistic 
peoples,  the  British  and  the  American,  have  outstripped 
all  others.  That  is,  there  has  been  the  greatest  advance 
where  government  or  society  has  placed  the  least  re- 
straint on  the  individual. 

Among  people  who  have  little  individuality  custom 
becomes  a  tyranny.  Says  Mr.  Mill:  "The  despotism 
of  custom  is  everywhere  the  standing  hindrance  to 
human  advancement."1  It  is  the  men  and  women 
of  greatest  individuality,  that  is,  of  independence, 
initiative  and  originality  who  rebel  against  the 
tyranny  of  outworn  custom  or  creed  and  inaugurate 
the  new.  Mr.  Mill  says  that  "nothing  was  ever  yet 
done  which  some  one  was  not  the  first  to  do," 
and  declares  that  "all  good  things  which  exist  are 
the  fruits  of  originality."2  It  was  by  no  accident 
that  the  most  individualistic  peoples  of  ancient  and 
modern  tunes  produced  the  world's  greatest  litera- 
tures, namely,  the  Greek  and  the  English.  On  the 
other  hand,  monotony  of  physical  and  mental 
characteristics  in  undeveloped  races  and  lower  animals 
is  obvious. 


'"Essay  on  Liberty,"  p.  125. 
'Ibid.,  p.  117. 


180  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

Individualists  also  properly  point  to  the  value  of 
progress  which  depends  on  liberty. 

Any  such  organization  of  society,  any  such  exten- 
sion of  the  powers  of  government  as  would  prevent  the 
free  development  of  individuality  would  sterilize  genius 
and  fossilize  civilization. 

II.    SOCIETY   VERSUS   THE   INDIVIDUAL 

If  there  are  those  who  lay  the  chief  emphasis  on  the 
rights,  duties,  and  liberties  of  the  individual,  there  are 
others  who  look  upon  the  institutions,  laws,  and  con- 
ventions of  society  as  of  supreme  importance.  They  tell 
us,  and  truly,  that  without  authority  there  would  be 
anarchy,  and  with  anarchy  civilization  would  perish. 
Ordered  society  is  the  first  condition  of  all  the  bless- 
ings of  civilization.  As  Dr.  E.  Benjamin  Andrews  puts 
it:  "All  that  we  possess,  whether  of  mental  or  of  mate- 
rial stores,  beyond  what  would  be  ours  had  we  always 
lived  in  Central  Africa  is  due  to  society."  Not  one  of 
the  great  works  of  genius  which  enrich  all  nations  and 
all  generations  —  no  triumph  of  literature,  of  painting, 
of  sculpture,  of  architecture,  of  invention  —  would  have 
been  possible  apart  from  society.  After  calling  atten- 
tion to  the  prevalent  error  which  regards  society  and 
the  state  as  arbitrary  creations,  not  belonging  to  man 
in  a  condition  of  nature,  but  artificially  added  later, 
Doctor  Andrews  says:  "Kindred  is  the  error  of  sup- 
posing that  the  social  organism  exists  simply  for  the 
sake  of  the  individual.  Society  is  in  part  an  end  in 
itself.  Man  is  greater  and  more  glorious  than  any 
man.  The  totality  of  human  relations,  as  a  totality, 
is  a  splendid  product,  worthy  of  Almighty  effort.  Far 
from  being  accidental,  mere  scaffolding  or  instrumen- 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  AND  SOCIETY        181 

tality,  it  is  the  innermost,  essential  part  of  creation* 
destined  to  stand  forever."1  Many  have  deemed  the 
individual  of  incomparably  more  worth  than  society 
because  the  soul  is  immortal;  but  that  society  is  not 
immortal  is  pure  assumption.  Indeed,  the  Scriptures 
always  represent  heaven  as  a  society,  and  therein  is 
its  perfection.  God  saw  in  the  beginning  that  it  was 
"not  good  for  man  to  be  alone."  Society  was  not  an 
afterthought,  nor  was  it  of  artificial  origin.  It  began 
with  the  first  human  pair;  and  without  it  human 
history  would  have  ended  with  the  first  human  being. 
Society  has  a  life  of  its  own  which  is  vast,  complex, 
and  continuous;  and  is  constantly  growing  more  vast 
and  more  complex.  It  is  gaining  self-consciousness, 
intelligence,  and  a  conscience.  Mulford  does  not  hesi- 
tate to  say  that  society  is  not  only  an  organism  but 
a  person,  with  a  mission  of  its  own,  having  its 
origin  immediately  in  God  and  its  vocation  only  from 
him.2 

Rank  in  the  scale  of  being  rises  with  increasing  com- 
plexity; and  the  life  of  society  is  infinitely  more  complex 
than  that  of  the  individual.  Its  higher  rank  is  also 
suggested  by  the  fact  that  it  is  later  in  gaining  self- 
consciousness  and  a  conscience;  and  "Tune's  noblest 
offspring  is  the  last."  A  perfected  society  seems  to  me 
the  most  exalted  of  all  conceivable  creations;  as  much 
more  glorious  than  the  suns  and  systems  of  the  physical 
universe  as  Godlike  character  is  more  glorious  than 
matter.  And  the  harmony  of  ten  thousand  free  wills 
perfectly  attuned  to  one  perfect  will  is  as  much  nobler 
than  the  beauty  of  a  single  soul  as  the  full  organ  is 
nobler  than  the  shepherd's  pipe. 

l"  Essay  on  the  Duty  of  a  Public  Spirit." 
•"The  Nation,"  pp.  260  and  267. 


182  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

m.     THE   INDIVIDUAL  AND   SOCIETY 

The  child  is  by  nature  a  knight-errant.  Wherever 
he  comes  upon  a  conflict  of  any  sort  he  wants  to  cham- 
pion one  side  against  the  other;  and  many  adults  never 
outgrow  this  characteristic  of  childhood,  never  attain 
the  judicial  temper  of  mind. 

The  champions  on  either  side  of  this  ancient  debate 
seem  to  have  assumed  that  the  individual  and  society 
are  unequally,  yoked  together,  that  then*  interests 
naturally  conflict,  and  that  the  one  can  prosper  only 
at  the  expense  of  the  other;  hence  the  heat  which  the 
debate  so  often  develops. 

It  seems  to  have  been  forgotten  that  a  philosophy  of 
any  sort  which  commends  itself  to  many  thinking  men 
age  after  age  must  have  a  measure  of  truth  in  it,  and 
that  not  until  that  truth  is  recognized  can  the  error 
which  is  mixed  with  it  be  overcome.  In  any  great  de- 
bate there  is  a  very  strong  presumption  of  truth  on  both 
sides.  Indeed,  almost  every  sphere  of  human  knowl- 
edge affords  illustrations  of  the  polarity  of  truth.  It 
is  the  perfect  balance  of  the  centrifugal  and  centrip- 
etal forces  which  preserves  the  order  of  the  universe. 
There  needs  to  be  a  like  balance  between  rights  and 
duties,  between  liberty  and  law,  between  progress  and 
security  to  achieve  a  like  order  in  the  moral  world. 
To  champion  the  individual  against  society  is  like 
championing  rights  against  duties,  forgetting  that 
each  implies  the  other,  and  that  neither  can  exist  with- 
out the  other.  He  who  has  duties  but  no  recognized 
rights  is  a  slave;  and  he  who  has  rights  but  no  recog- 
nized duties  is  a  tyrant.  Liberty  without  law  means 
the  violence  of  license;  while  law  without  liberty  means 
despotism.  Progress  without  security  would  be  only 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  AND  SOCIETY      183 

a  euphemism  for  ever  shifting  anarchy;  while  security 
without  progress  entails  death  and  fossilization. 

We  must  not  think  of  the  individual  as  quite  apart 
from  society,  the  state,  government,  and  naturally 
antagonistic  to  them.  He  is  not  only  a  person  but  a 
social  being,  and  government,  the  state,  and  society 
are  rooted  in  his  nature.  Professor  Lieber  justly  says: 
"  We  must  start  from  the  pregnant  fact  that  each  man 
is  made  an  individual  and  a  social  being,  and  that  his 
whole  humanity  with  all  its  attributes,  moral,  religious, 
emotional,  mental,  cultural,  and  industrial,  is  decreed 
forever  to  revolve  between  the  two  poles  of  individual- 
ism and  socialism,  taking  the  latter  term  in  its  strictly 
philosophical  adaptation.1 

When  we  choose  the  individual  or  society  and 
champion  the  one  against  the  other  we  set  up  a  false 
alternative  or  antithesis,  and  reveal  a  radically  wrong 
conception  of  the  origin  of  individuality  and  of  sociality 
and,  therefore,  of  the  relations  of  the  individual  and 
society  to  each  other. 

Every  human  being  is  not  only  the  child  of  his  par- 
ents but  the  child  of  the  race,  and  inherits  the  universal 
racial  characteristics.  He  is  endowed  not  only  with  the 
individualistic  instincts  of  self-preservation  but  also 
with  the  social  instincts  of  affection,  imitation,  bashful- 
ness,  shame,  love  of  approbation,  sympathy  and  the  like, 
which  link  him  to  his  kind.  If  none  of  his  ancestors 
married  relations,  their  number,  of  course,  doubled  in 
each  generation  one  remove  further.  That  is,  he  had 
four  grandparents,  eight  great  grandparents,  and  in 
the  tenth  generation  there  were  512  men  and  512  women 
—  cotemporaries  scattered  perhaps  very  widely  over 
the  world  —  the  different  strains  of  whose  blood  all 

"'Inaugural  Address." 


184  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

meet  in  equal  measure  in  his  veins.  What  varied  and 
also  conflicting  traits  "run  in  his  blood";  and  how  are 
those  feelings,  impulses,  appetites,  desires,  and  im- 
pressions which  are  common  to  the  race,  and  those 
which  are  common  to  the  people  of  the  same  civiliza- 
tion repeated  and  reinforced  in  him !  Of  course  many 
of  the  marriages  among  his  ancestors  were  more  or  less 
consanguineous,  but  after  making  due  allowance  for 
this,  it  must  be  evident,  in  view  of  the  thousands  of 
generations  back  of  every  human  being,  that  we  are 
each  one  the  offspring  of  many  hundreds  of  thousands, 
or  millions,  of  ancestors.  Sir  Francis  Galton  estimated 
that  a  child's  inheritance  from  its  ancestors,  no  farther 
back  than  the  Norman  Conquest,  is  a  composite  of 
some  16,000,000  lives. 

Every  man  without  giving  any  thought  to  the  matter 
has,  I  suppose,  a  dim  impression  that  in  some  special 
measure  he  is  descended  from  the  line  of  ancestors 
whose  name  he  bears,  and  that  he  is  especially  in- 
debted to  them  for  his  inherited  characteristics.  We 
say  that  Emperor  William  is  a  Hohenzollern,  that 
our  President  is  a  Wilson,  and  our  neighbour  a 
Smith,  forgetting  that  so  far  as  blood  is  concerned 
each  one  of  them  is  equally  related  to  a  thousand 
other  families. 

When  we  sketch  our  family  tree  we  select  some  ances- 
tor whose  name  we  bear,  perhaps  the  one  who  first 
landed  in  America,  and  make  him  the  trunk.  The 
branches,  dividing  and  subdividing,  represent  succeed- 
ing generations,  until  we  locate  ourselves  as  a  little 
twig.  The  roots  of  this  immigrant  ancestor  are  out  of 
sight,  and  like  other  roots  under  ground.  Do  we  forget 
that  this  trunk  came  from  a  ramification  of  roots 
infinitely  greater  and  more  complex  than  the  branches? 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  AND  SOCIETY       185 

And  do  we  forget  that  each  of  the  many  marriages 
indicated  in  this  tree  connects  it  vitally  with  another 
tree  equally  complex  in  its  system  of  branches  and 
roots?  In  fact  our  family  tree  is  one  of  the  accessory 
trunks  of  a  banyan,  which  represents  society;  and  each 
individual  twig  of  every  branch  partakes  of  the  one 
vast  and  complex  life. 

Society  cannot  be  better  or  worse  than  the  individuals 
who  are  its  constituent  elements.  To  change  it  is  to 
change  them;  and  to  change  them  is  to  change  it.  Their 
interests  may  seem  to  conflict,  but  fundamentally  and 
finally  they  are  the  same.  There  may  be  circum- 
stances which  call  on  the  individual  to  sacrifice  himself 
for  society,  but  wherever  there  is  an  actual  conflict  of 
interests  I  believe  it  is  because  the  life  of  one  or  the 
other,  or  of  both,  is  not  normal.  Says  Professor  J. 
M.  Baldwin:  "There  is  but  one  human  interest, 
when  all  is  said,  and  that  is  both  individual  and  social 
at  once."1 

Down  to  the  time  of  Adam  Smith  statesmen  acted 
on  the  belief  that  the  enrichment  of  one  nation  meant 
the  impoverishment  of  another;  and  even  Lord  Bacon 
thought  that  this  was  a  self-evident  truth.  But  with 
the  development  of  a  world-life  interests  become  com- 
mon, and  now  we  know  that  the  prosperity  of  other 
nations  is  favourable  to  our  own.  In  like  manner  as 
it  becomes  obvious  that  society  is  living  one  life,  of 
which  the  individual  is  a  part,  the  old  and  common 
conviction  that  their  interests  are  antagonistic  is  dis- 
appearing. 

It  is  sufficiently  obvious  that  society  can  have  no 
existence  apart  from  the  individuals  of  wrhom  it  is  com- 
posed, and  that  the  individual  can  have  no  existence 

'"The  Individual  and  Society,"  p.  170. 


186  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

apart  from  society  which  gives  to  him  his  life  and 
nourishes  it  through  helpless  years.  It  is  not  equally 
obvious  that  society  can  develop  its  sociality,  can  rise 
to  a  higher  form  of  social  organization,  only  as  the  indi- 
vidual is  individualized,  and  that  the  higher  individua- 
tion  of  the  individual  can  take  place  only  in  connection 
with  society,  and  is  conditioned  by  social  progress. 
Let  us  try  to  make  this  clear,  for  I  think  this 
important  fact,  which  is  fundamental  to  a  correct  un- 
derstanding of  the  relations  of  the  individual  and 
society,  was  quite  unknown  to  any  earlier  generation. 
The  primitive  man  has  a  very  low  degree  of  individu- 
ality. Such  is  the  solidarity  of  the  group,  in  feeling, 
thinking  and  acting,  that  each  man  is  little  more  than 
a  repetition  of  every  other.  "The  primitive  man," 
says  Professor  Tufts  of  the  University  of  Chicago, 
"finds  most  of  the  technique  of  life  —  his  occupation, 
his  lodging,  his  costume,  his  fighting,  his  religion  — 
all  set  for  him.  In  all  these  he  thinks  and  speaks  less 
as  'I'  than  as  'we.'  The  Arabs  never  say,  'The  blood 
of  M.  or  N.  has  been  spilt,'  naming  the  man;  they  say, 
'Our  blood  has  been  spilt.'"  "Individuality  and 
sociality  pass  through  the  following  process:  Society 
begins  with  no  sharp  distinction  between  self  and 
others,  with  no  definite  rights,  no  personal  duties,  no 
positive  freedom,  no  strictly  personal  responsibility. 
As  rational  standards  are  gradually  set  up  and  brought 
to  bear  upon  the  conflicting  claims  of  individuals,  or 
upon  the  conflicts  between  individuals  and  the  group 
all  these  positive  factors  in  individuality  and  social 
obligation  assert  their  value  and  gain  explicit  recogni- 
tion."1  Our  powers  are,  of  course,  developed  by  their 

'"Studies  in  Philosophy  and  Psychology,"  "On  Moral  Evolution," 
pp.  18,  19,  20. 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  AND  SOCIETY       187 

use.  What  a  muscle  is  depends  on  what  it  does. 
Placed  under  such  unnatural  conditions  that  it  could 
never  be  used,  a  muscle  could  never  be  developed.  A 
sense  of  duty  is  developed  only  by  doing  duty.  "He 
that  doeth  righteousness  is  righteous."  If  a  veritable 
Romulus  or  Remus  could  be  suckled  by  a  wolf,  and 
by  this  unhuman  foster  mother  brought  to  self -support 
without  ever  having  come  into  contact  with  his  own 
kind,  he  would  be  in  character  much  more  wolfish  than 
human;  his  intellectual  and  moral  life  would  remain 
dormant  because  he  would  never  have  been  brought 
into  intelligent  and  moral  relations  with  intelligent  and 
moral  beings.  Apart  from  his  fellows  a  human  being 
could  not  develop  his  moral  or  intellectual  nature;  that 
is,  could  not  become  a  man.  As  Professor  Baldwin 
says:  "The  social  relation  is  in  all  cases  intrinsic  to 
the  life,  interests,  and  purposes  of  the  individual"1  We 
are  told  that  Helen  Keller  remembers  when  she  had 
only  physical  appetities  and  desires.  In  other  words, 
she  can  remember  when  she  was  an  animal  —  perhaps 
the  only  human  being  of  whom  this  has  been  true. 
There  were  wonderful  possibilities  of  intellectual  and 
moral  life  and  beauty  lying  dormant  in  her  brain,  but 
they  were  only  possibilities  because  she  was  cut  off  from 
society.  No  one  can  doubt  for  a  moment  that  had 
she  remained  thus  isolated  her  intellectual  and  moral 
life  would  have  remained  undeveloped.  That  is,  she 
was  individualized  through  social  relations.  And  if, 
instead  of  coming  under  the  training  of  a  wonderfully 
patient  and  skilful  teacher,  she  had  been  placed  among 
the  aborigines  of  Australia  and  sight  and  hearing  had 
been  given  to  her,  evidently  her  degree  of  individua- 


l"The  Individual  and  Society,"  p.  28. 


188  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

tion  would  have  been  as  slight  as  the  sociality  of  those 
savages  is  low.1 

On  the  other  hand,  society  can  achieve  a  higher  order 
only  by  individualizing  the  individual.  Organisms 
rise  in  the  scale  of  being  just  hi  proportion  as  their 
organs  increase  in  number,  variety,  and  complexity. 
Variety  is  much  more  than  the  spice  of  life;  it  is  an 
index  of  life's  rank.  "All  progress  in  the  world  of  life," 
says  Dr.  C.  W.  Saleeby,  "has  depended  on  cell-differen- 
tiation."2 Individuals  may  be  called  the  cells  of  the 
social  organism;  and  the  primitive  group,  in  which 
there  is  only  a  very  limited  variation  among  individuals, 
is  of  low  order,  and  can  rise  only  as  its  members  develop 
different  adaptations  and  abilities.  In  high  civiliza- 
tions there  is  not  only  a  great  variety  of  gifts  among 
men,  but  an  almost  immeasurable  difference  in  endow- 
ments. The  differentiation  of  labour  made  the  organi- 
zation of  industry  possible,  and  powerfully  stimulated 
social  development;  and  by  making  the  interdepend- 
ence of  men  complete  and  obvious  induced  the  new 
social  self -consciousness,  which  has  raised  society  to  a 
higher  rank  in  the  moral  universe,  and  immeasurably 
increased  its  noble  possibilities.  Thus  the  individual 
and  society  are  so  related  that  the  progress  of  each  is 
conditioned  by  that  of  the  other. 

IV.      THE   SACRIFICE   OF   EITHER   TO   THE   OTHER 

In  the  Orient  the  individual  has  been  only  a  means  to 
society  as  an  end.  In  the  Occident  society  has  become 
little  more  than  a  means  to  the  individual  as  an  end; 

1  Just  after  I  had  written  the  above  sentences  Miss  Keller  said  in 
a  public  address:  "It  was  the  hands  of  others  that  made  this  miracle 
in  me.  Without  my  teacher  I  should  be  nothing.  Without  you  I 
should  be  nothing,  We  live  by  and  for  each  other." 

'"Woman  and  Womanhood,"  p.  88. 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  AND  SOCIETY       189 

and  this  would  seem  to  be  the  fundamental  difference 
between  the  civilization  of  the  East  and  that  of  the 
West. 

Let  us  glance  at  the  results  of  this  lack  of  balance. 

1.  Whatever  the  cause  of  the  suppression  of  the 
individual  throughout  the  Orient,  the  fact  is  every- 
where obvious.  The  story  is  told  that  years  ago  when 
the  Shah  of  Persia  was  visiting  England  and  making 
the  rounds  of  public  institutions,  his  interest  was 
greatly  aroused  by  a  gallows  which  was  shown  him  in  a 
prison.  Being  curious  to  know  how  it  worked,  he 
requested  that  a  prisoner  might  be  brought  out  and 
hung;  and  when  informed  that  in  England  a  man  could 
not  be  put  to  death  without  due  process  of  law,  he 
replied:  "Very  well;  here  is  one  of  my  men.  Hang 
him!"  Whether  true  or  not,  the  story  gives  a  correct 
appraisal  of  human  life  according  to  oriental  standards. 
When  numbers  of  Europeans  and  Americans  were 
killed  at  the  time  of  the  Boxer  rebellion,  their  respec- 
tive governments  exacted  a  large  indemnity.  Soon 
after  the  massacre  of  a  large  number  of  Chinese  work- 
men at  Rock  Springs,  Wyoming,  a  generation  ago,  the 
Hon.  J.  L.  M.  Curry  expressed  his  profound  regret  to 
the  Chinese  minister,  accredited  to  the  United  States, 
with  whom  he  was  crossing  the  ocean.  We  should 
suppose  that  the  minister  would  have  had  at  least  an 
official  interest  in  the  outrage,  but"  instead  His  Excel- 
lency dismissed  the  matter  with  a  wave  of  the  hand, 
exclaiming  in  a  tone  of  supreme  contempt:  "Chinese! 
Bilgewater ! "  In  old  Japan  a  human  being  as  such  had 
no  value.  "Hence,"  we  are  told  by  Dr.  Sidney  L. 
Gulick,  "the  liberty  allowed  the  samurai  of  cutting 
down,  in  cold  blood,  a  beggar,  a  merchant,  or  a  farmer 
on  the  slightest  provocation,  or  simply  for  the  purpose 


190  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

of  testing  his  sword." l  After  his  personal  observations 
in  Asia,  President  Henry  Churchill  King  writes: 
"Oriental  civilizations  are  predominantly  communal. 
There  is  hi  the  Orient  practically  no  true  individualism, 
in  the  Western  conception  of  individualism,  no  ade- 
quate sense  of  the  Christian  conception  of  the  priceless 
value  and  sacredness  of  the  individual  person.  The 
individual  life,  for  the  most  part,  has  been  dominated 
to  an  almost  unbelievable  extent  by  the  community."2 
To  such  a  degree  has  individuality  been  sacrificed  to 
the  communal  principle  in  Asia  that  it  is  seriously 
debated  by  occidentals  whether  personality  is  or  is  not 
an  attribute  of  the  oriental  mind.  The  fact  that  the 
individual  is  only  a  means  to  society  as  an  end  is  so 
undisputed  that  it  does  not  need  to  be  argued,  and  is 
sufficiently  illustrated  by  the  foregoing. 

The  outstanding  result  of  this  arrested  development 
of  the  individual  is  the  end  of  progress  and  the  fossiliza- 
tion  of  society.  When  civilization  had  advanced  to 
the  agricultural  stage  the  secure  possession  of  land 
became  a  necessity  of  life.  Orientals  in  general  live 
on  land  which  is  the  property  of  the  despotic  ruler  —  a 
sovereign  who  makes  the  law  which  he  administers. 
Under  such  conditions  where  land  and,  therefore,  life 
might  be  arbitrarily  taken  there  was  but  one  check  to  the 
most  tyrannical  use  of  power,  namely,  custom.  We 
find,  therefore,  that  hi  all  oriental  communities  custom 
has  all  the  sacredness  of  law.  Indeed,  there  is  much 
less  violation  of  custom  in  the  East  than  of  law  in  the 
West.  Any  who  had  sufficient  independence  to  dis- 
regard custom  suffered  the  most  terrible  social  penal- 
ties, to  which  were  added  the  awful  retributions  of 

'"Evolution  of  the  Japanese,"  p.  258. 

1  The  Oberlin  Alumni  Magazine,  November,  1910,  p.  57. 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  AND  SOCIETY       191 

religion.  Thus  throughout  the  East  inviolate  custom 
became  a  sort  of  unwritten  constitution  which  alone 
could  protect  the  people  from  the  caprice  of  arbitrary 
power.  Says  Dr.  J.  P.  Jones :  "  India  is  a  land  where 
custom  is  denied  —  the  past  is  their  glory.  .  .  . 
Under  such  a  system  all  innovations  are  out  of  place, 
individual  ambitions  are  crushed.  To  resemble  their 
ancestors  is  the  summum  bonum  of  their  life."1  Doctor 
Gulick  remarks:  "Let  the  'cake  of  custom'  become 
so  rigid  that  every  individual  who  varies  from  it  is 
branded  as  a  heretic  and  a  traitor,  and  the  progressive 
evolution  of  that  community  must  cease."2  After 
thirty  years  of  experience  among  the  Chinese,  Doctor 
Yates  wrote  in  1877:  "The  generation  of  to-day  is 
chained  to  the  generations  of  the  past."3  In  one  of 
his  unequalled  works  on  the  Chinese  Dr.  Arthur  Smith 
says:  "It  is  true  of  the  Chinese,  to  a  greater  degree 
than  of  any  other  nation  in  history,  that  then*  Golden 
Age  is  in  the  past.  The  sages  of  antiquity  themselves 
spoke  with  the  deepest  reverence  of  more  ancient  'an- 
cients.' Confucius  declared  that  he  was  not  an  origina- 
tor, but  a  transmitter.  It  was  his  mission  to  gather 
up  what  had  once  been  known,  but  long  neglected 
or  misunderstood."  4 

As  has  been  already  remarked,  it  is  the  man  who 
varies  most  widely  from  the  common  type,  the  man  of 
greatest  originality  or  individuality,  who  is  most 
likely  to  break  through  established  custom.  It  is, 
therefore,  where  individuality  has  been  suppressed  or 
its  development  arrested  that  the  reign  of  custom  is  the 

'"India's  Problems,"  p.  17. 

1  "Evolution  of  the  Japanese,"  p.  334. 

*  Quoted  by  Dr.  Arthur  Smith  in  "Chinese  Charactristics,"  p.  184. 

'  "Chinese  Characteristics,"  p.  115. 


192  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

most  absolute,  the  most  universal  and  the  most  per- 
manent, la  a  comprehensive  passage  Walter  Bage- 
hot  outlines  the  process  by  which  ancient  civilizations 
became  fossilized.  "No  one,"  he  says,  "will  ever  com- 
prehend the  arrested  civilizations  unless  he  sees  the 
strict  dilemma  of  early  society.  Either  men  had  no 
law  at  all,  and  lived  in  confused  tribes,  hardly  hanging 
together,  or  they  had  to  obtain  a  fixed  law  by  processes 
of  incredible  difficulty.  Those  who  surmounted  that 
difficulty  soon  destroyed  all  those  who  lay  in  their  way 
who  did  not.  And  then  they  themselves  were  caught 
in  their  own  yoke.  The  customary  discipline,  which 
could  only  be  imposed  on  any  early  men  by  terrible 
sanctions,  continued  with  those  sanctions,  and  killed 
out  of  the  whole  society  the  propensities  to  variation 
which  are  the  principle  of  progress."1 

Where  it  is  customary  not  to  struggle  against  un- 
toward circumstances,  it  is  easy  to  see  that  the  doc- 
trine of  fatalism  would  obtain  and  further  paralyze 
effort. 

Where  ancient  custom  is  sacred  and  reverence  for  the 
past  is  profound,  the  worship  of  ancestors  naturally 
becomes  a  religious  rite,  and  this  is  an  essential  part  of 
both  Shintoism  and  Confucianism.  Furthermore,  a 
suppressed  individuality  was  a  prepared  soil  for  Bud- 
dhism which  aims  at  the  suppression  of  all  desire  and 
seeks  to  attain  Nirvana  —  vacuity. 

An  undeveloped  individuality  invites,  and,  indeed 
necessitates  despotism,  and  is  naturally  accompanied 
by  the  communal  organization  of  society  and  the  pa- 
triarchal organization  of  the  family. 

The  sacrifice  of  individuality,  therefore,  lies  at  the 
foundation  of  the  political,  religious,  social,  and  domes- 

"' Physics  and  Politics,"  p.  57. 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  AND  SOCIETY       193 

tic  institutions  of  oriental  civilization.  We  can  im- 
agine, then,  what  an  unequalled  overturning  there  will 
be  as  increasing  contact  with  the  West  individualizes 
more  and  more  the  swarming  millions  of  the  East. 
The  revolutionary  changes  in  Japan  afford  an  illus- 
tration and  a  prophecy,  for  the  Japanese  are  being 
rapidly  individualized. 

2.  The  greater  development  of  individuality  in 
Europe  may  be  attributed  to  the  more  favourable 
environment  afforded  by  European  physical  geography 
which  differs  so  widely  from  that  of  Asia.  In  the  East 
great  civilizations  arose  where  great  rivers  and  extended 
valleys  made  it  easy  for  a  tribe  to  grow  into  a  numerous 
people  of  the  same  blood,  having  the  same  language, 
traditions,  and  religion,  the  same  customs,  habits, 
and  ideas,  the  same  laws,  institutions,  and  government. 
These  conditions  which  were  most  favourable  to  an 
extended  organization  of  society  were  least  favourable 
to  the  development  of  individuality,  which  is  stimulated 
by  a  conflict  of  ideas  and  the  competition  of  conflicting 
interests 

European  civilization,  on  the  other  hand,  was  the 
outcome  of  conditions  in  which  mountain  ranges  and 
seas  separated  peoples  sufficiently  to  favour  the  de- 
velopment of  different  characteristics  and  different 
institutions,  though  not  great  enough  to  isolate  peoples 
and  prevent  that  intercourse  which  is  necessary  to 
stimulate,  and  to  disseminate  new  ideas. 

The  existence  of  a  tendency  toward  individuation 
in  Europe  may  account  for  the  fact  that  Christianity 
—  an  Asiatic  religion  —  spread  westward  rather  than 
eastward.  Jesus  has  been  claimed  both  as  an  individu- 
alist and  as  a  socialist,  which  is  fairly  good  evidence 
that  he  was  neither.  But  if  he  was  a  champion  of 


194  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

neither  the  individual  nor  society  against  the  other, 
he  recognized  the  possibilities  of  organized  society  and 
the  inherent  value  of  the  individual  as  no  one  else  has 
ever  done.  Indeed,  he  has  been  called  "  The  discoverer 
of  the  individual."  The  Christian  religion  teaches 
individual  responsibility  to  a  personal  God  as  does  no 
other.  This  further  individualized  the  West,  and  pre- 
pared a  soil  for  the  growth  of  civil  and  religious  liberty, 
which  is  necessary  to  the  full  development  of  self- 
consciousness,  for  only  when  one  possesses  the  full 
power  of  self-direction,  and  is  fully  conscious  of  his 
responsibility  for  his  acts  can  he  be  fully  conscious  of 
himself.  It  was  accordingly  in  Europe,  and  during  a 
great  religious  struggle,  that  the  individual  first  gained 
full  self-consciousness  and  won  the  right  of  private 
judgment. 

This  gave  a  new  and  great  impulse  to  the  individua- 
tion  of  occidental  civilization,  from  which  have  sprung 
its  most  distinctive  characteristics,  both  good  and  bad 
—  its  literature  and  art,  its  science  and  invention,  its 
education  and  its  moral  reforms. 

But  while  this  differentiation  of  individuals  has  borne 
these  noble  fruits  and  has  resulted  in  a  higher  organiza- 
tion of  society  there  has  been  at  the  same  time  a  self- 
assertion  of  the  individual  which  has  been  detrimental 
to  society  and  has  worked  many  sore  evils. 

We  are  often  reminded  that  the  progress  of  civiliza- 
tion has  been  from  status  to  contract.  This  marked  the 
rising  importance  of  the  individual;  and  as  man  gamed 
the  right  of  individual  contract,  and  each  man  assumed 
responsibility  for  himself  the  sense  of  social  respon- 
sibility was  naturally  weakened. 

This  new  liberty  and  life  which  came  to  the  individual 
stimulated  invention  and  exploration,  which  afforded 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  AND  SOCIETY       195 

new  opportunities  and  offered  new  rewards  to  energy, 
enterprise,  and  initiative.  Thus  the  competitive 
struggle  for  individual  gain  and  increasing  individu- 
ation  each  developed  and  intensified  the  other. 

The  fierce  struggle  of  every  man  for  himself  was  not 
likely  to  encourage  very  tender  consideration  of  con- 
sequences to  society,  and  especially  so  in  view  of  the 
fact  that  this  selfish  indifference  to  others,  this  laissez- 
faire  policy,  was  justified  as  a  correct  economic  prin- 
ciple. It  has  been  a  central  doctrine  of  the  Manchester 
school  of  economy  to  disassociate  all  sense  of  respon- 
sibility from  the  economic  process.  Cobden  frankly 
said:  "We  have  no  commission  to  administer  justice 
to  the  world."  The  result  has  been  the  administration 
of  much  injustice,  and  the  rise  of  such  abuses  as  child 
labour,  the  sweatshop,  the  congestion  of  the  slum,  and 
many  others. 

Under  the  feudal  system  the  overlord  had  a  recog- 
nized and  acknowledged  responsibility  for  his  retainers, 
and  under  the  earlier  system  of  slavery,  even  at  its 
worst,  the  master  was  moved  by  self -interest  to  some 
care  for  the  physical  welfare  of  his  slaves;  but  under  the 
conditions  of  the  new  industry,  as  employed  men  be- 
came the  guardians  of  their  own  rights  and  made  their 
own  bargains,  the  employer  naturally  came  to  feel  that 
his  duty  to  his  employees  had  been  discharged  when  he 
had  paid  them  their  wages. 

In  like  manner  men  engaged  in  manufactures,  or 
trade,  or  any  other  competitive  endeavour,  naturally 
fixed  their  eyes  on  their  rivals  rather  than  on  the  public 
welfare,  with  the  result  that  everybody's  business  be- 
came nobody's  business,  which  opened  the  door  wide 
to  all  sorts  of  public  abuses,  such  as  the  corrupt  giving 
of  franchises,  the  growth  of  the  white  slave  traffic,  the 


196  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

development  of  police  graft,  which  is  selling  the  protec- 
tion of  the  law  to  criminals,  and  other  forms  of  festering 
municipal  putrefaction.  This  ulcerous  manifestation  of 
selfish  individualism,  suppurates  and  comes  to  a  head 
in  the  person  of  the  political  boss,  whose  power  is  often 
greater  than  the  authority  of  the  municipal  or  state 
executive.  The  executive  represents  society;  the 
boss  represents  himself.  "He  is  in  politics,"  as  one 
of  that  ilk  stated  on  the  witness  stand,  "to  fill  his 
own  pockets  every  time."  He  hardly  needed  to 
take  his  oath  to  it;  we  could  have  believed  a  simple 
affirmation. 

The  lack  of  the  social  spirit  in  industry  has  enabled 
the  selfish  individualist  to  become  stronger  than  the 
state,  and  with  the  aid  of  lawyers,  as  unscrupulous  as 
they  are  acute,  to  sacrifice  the  interests  of  society  to 
himself  and  his  stockholders.  State  governments  have 
legislated  in  vain  against  the  trusts;  and  the  national 
government,  in  trying  conclusions  with  them,  has  won 
barren  victories. 

Another  illustration  of  the  sacrifice  of  society  to  a 
perverted  and  vicious  individualism,  in  the  name  of 
personal  liberty,  is  seen  in  the  amount  and  character 
of  the  evidence  required  to  convict  the  keepers  of 
gambling  dens,  and  of  disorderly  houses,  their  inmates, 
professional  thieves,  and  hi  many  states  saloon- 
keepers. These  parasites  on  the  body  of  society  all 
flourish  in  defiance  of  law,  while  citizens  weakly  lament 
that  nothing  can  be  done.  Antiquated  laws  originally 
framed  to  protect  the  individual  against  the  tyranny  of 
the  crown  now  serve  as  a  shield  to  protect  the  profes- 
sional criminal  against  society  —  another  illustration 
of  Walter  Bagehot's  declaration  that  "the  whole  his- 
tory of  civilization  is  strewn  with  creeds  and  insti- 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  AND  SOCIETY       197 

tutions  which  were  invaluable  at  first,  but  deadly 
afterwards."1 

Again,  differences  between  men  which  nature  evi- 
dently intended  for  the  greater  interdependence,  unity, 
and  perfection  of  society  have  been  so  exaggerated  by  a 
selfish  individualism  as  to  make  the  many  dependent  on 
the  few,  and  to  split  up  society  into  hostile  classes  and 
warring  interests.  Says  Justice  Howard,  of  the  Appel- 
late Division  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  New  York: 
"The  highest  fortunes,  and  in  many  instances,  the  most 
abject  poverty  of  all  ages  exist  in  this  country;  colos- 
sal corporations  more  powerful  and  wealthy  than  an- 
cient kingdoms  are  amongst  us;  gigantic  combinations 
and  trusts,  under  the  command  of  one  individual, 
with  more  men  and  money  than  Athens  had  at  the 
battle  of  Marathon,  are  in  our  midst;  and  children  are 
toiling  in  canneries  and  families  are  huddled  in  dark 
basements.  .  .  .  And  our  laws  tolerate  it  all."2 

One  November  morning  when  walking  through 
Bryant  Park,  New  York,  I  met  a  man  carrying  a  dozen 
glorious  chrysanthemums,  and  only  a  few  rods  behind 
him  another  having  his  arms  filled  with  hundreds  of 
blossoms  of  the  same  flower  but  of  ordinary  size.  I 
had  seen  a  parable.  It  is  well  worth  while  to  pinch 
a  hundred  buds,  and  to  sacrifice  a  hundred  common- 
place blossoms  to  a  single  magnificent  bloom  —  what 
Maeterlinck  would  call  a  fleece  of  snow,  a  globe  of  red 
copper,  a  sphere  of  old  silver  or  a  trophy  of  alabaster  or 
amethyst;  but  when  it  conies  to  pinching  a  hundred  or 
a  thousand  human  lives  to  make  one  "superman," 
that  is  not  liberty,  but  anarchy. 

'"Physics  and  Politics,"  p.  74. 

'An  address  before  the  LaSalle  Institute,  Troy,  N.  Y..  January 
27.  1913. 


198  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

It  has  been  shown  that  sacrificing  the  individual  to 
society,  instead  of  benefiting  society,  arrests  its  develop- 
ment. In  like  manner,  sacrificing  society  to  the  in- 
dividual, instead  of  benefiting  the  individual,  impairs 
his  freedom,  and  injures  his  interests,  which  proves 
that  they  are  interdependent  and  that  fundamentally 
then:  interests  are  the  same. 

It  is,  therefore,  evident  that  all  schemes  of  social 
regeneration  which  ignore  or  sacrifice  either  the  in- 
dividual or  society  must  prove  fallacious  and  mis- 
chievous. Thus  socialism1  and  anarchism  are  alike 
condemned,  as  is  syndicalism  also,  which  is  socialistic 
in  its  aim  and  anarchistic  in  its  methods. 

Both  in  the  Orient  and  in  the  Occident  the  balance 
between  the  individual  and  society  has  been  lost,  and 
to  the  great  detriment  of  civilization  in  both.  But  we 
cannot  redress  the  lost  balance  by  legislation.  The 
readjustment  of  laws  to  modern  conditions  is  greatly 
needed  in  both  hemispheres;  but  though  wise  laws  can 
mitigate  they  cannot  cure  existing  evils.  Laws,  after 
all,  are  only  makeshifts  until  the  moral  evolution  can 
overtake  the  material.  "The  fitting  adjustment  be- 
tween individual  independence  and  social  control" 
which  Mr.  Mill  demanded  is  a  compromise  not  a  per- 
manent solution.  The  perfect  adjustment  of  opposing 
forces  which  maintains  the  balance  of  the  material 
universe  is  only  a  temporary  recourse  in  the  moral 
world.  We  need  not  opposing  but  cooperating 
forces,  or  rather  principles,  which  will  perfectly  sup- 
plement and  complete  each  other.  And  precisely 
such  a  solution,  for  which  the  ages  have  waited,  is 
made  by  applying  to  this  new  old  problem  the  teach- 

*In  another  chapter  I  shall  undertake  to  show  at  some  length  that 
socialism  would  utterly  fail  to  solve  the  social  problem. 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  AND  SOCIETY       199 

Ings  of  Jesus;  which  application  will  be  made  in  a 
later  chapter. 

V.     NEW   ELEMENTS   OF   THE   PROBLEM 

For  thousands  of  years  the  process  of  individuation 
has  been  suspended  in  the  East,  which  resulted  in  the 
paralysis  of  progress;  and  now  for  the  first  time  in  all 
history  close  and  increasing  contact  with  the  West  is 
administering  a  powerful  stimulus  to  the  individual. 
Judging  from  European  experience  this  must  mean  that 
profound  changes  of  the  most  fundamental  character 
are  impending  in  Asia.  Glancing  over  our  shoulder 
at  European  history,  we  see  that  progress  has  moved 
in  an  immense  zigzag  across  the  centuries,  alternating 
between  an  individualizing  tendency  which  has  con- 
tinued for  ages,  and  a  socializing  tendency  which  has 
continued  for  other  ages.  Each  alternating  angle  of 
progress  shows  that  the  new  direction  was  a  reaction 
from  the  preceding;  and  though  each  new  advance  was 
made  possible  by  the  preceding,  it  was  also  in  some 
measure  at  the  expense  of  the  preceding.  Thus  under 
the  Roman  Emperors  there  was  great  advance  in  the 
direction  of  social  organization,  but  it  was  at  the  expense 
of  individual  liberty.  Then  came  the  incursions  of  the 
barbarians  with  fresh,  unspoiled  blood  which  reinvigo- 
rated  southern  Europe.  They  were  free,  but  theirs  was 
a  wild,  lawless  kind  of  freedom.  There  was  progress 
in  the  development  of  the  individual  until  it  culminated 
in  those  splendid  types  of  the  age  of  chivalry,  which  still 
kindles  our  imagination.  And  then  again  society  began 
to  reorganize;  law  and  order  and  commerce  were  ex- 
tended as  power  passed  from  the  barons  to  the  kings, 
from  weaker  to  stronger  hands,  until  society  was  organ- 
ized in  great  kingdoms.  But  this  extension  of  authority 


200  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

was  increasing  at  the  expense  of  personal  liberty, 
until  with  the  Renaissance  and  the  Reformation  there 
came  another  reaction  toward  individual  freedom  —  a 
freedom  of  a  higher  type  than  that  of  the  barbarians  — 
and  from  that  time  until  a  few  years  ago  progress  was 
in  the  direction  of  the  development  of  the  individual, 
and  the  great  reforms  of  the  past  four  hundred  years 
have  been  the  winning  of  individual  rights  by  the  de- 
struction of  political,  industrial,  and  social  tyrannies, 
and  sometimes,  as  we  have  seen,  at  the  sacrifice  of  real 
social  values. 

Each  of  these  great  changes  in  the  direction  of  prog- 
ress has  been  attended  by  great  revolutions,  and  each 
has  been  the  beginning  of  a  new  type  of  civilization. 
When,  therefore,  in  Asia  the  inertia  of  millenniums  is 
overcome  and  that  vast  mass  of  850,000,000  begins  to 
move  in  the  direction  of  the  liberation  and  elevation 
of  the  individual,  the  magnitude  of  the  resulting  revolu- 
tions is  beyond  human  forecast.  That  movement 
has  already  begun;  the  restlessness  of  India  portends 
coming  changes  of  vast  moment;  the  new  Chinese  re- 
public means  that  a  nation  which  had  been  looking 
backward  for  more  than  four  thousand  years  has  now 
set  its  face  to  the  future;  while  the  miracle  of  trans- 
formation in  Japan  is  well  advanced  toward  com- 
pletion. 

But  scarcely  less  significant  than  this  new  oriental 
movement  of  the  individual  is  the  new  occidental  move- 
ment of  society.  The  great  impetus  given  to  individu- 
alism by  theGermanReformation  continued  through  the 
greater  part  of  the  nineteenth  century,  during  which  it 
struggled,  with  changing  odds,  against  the  new  social 
spirit  that  has  made  itself  increasingly  felt  since  the 
middle  of  that  century;  and  now  this  new  movement 


toward  a  higher  organization  of  society  is  rapidly  gain- 
ing momentum. 

In  the  latest  presentation  of  this  ancient  problem  of 
the  individual  and  society  there  are  two  elements  which 
are  entirely  new.  As  was  pointed  out  in  Chapter  V, 
society  has  now  achieved  self-consciousness,  which 
means  that,  from  this  time  on,  it  must  take  conscious 
direction  of  its  own  destiny. 

Our  study  of  the  individual  and  society  shows  that 
heretofore  conditions  which  have  been  favourable  to 
the  development  of  the  one  have  been  unfavourable 
to  the  development  of  the  other.  I  deem  it  a  mat- 
ter of  high  significance  that  now  for  the  first 
time  in  the  history  of  the  race  the  same  conditions 
are  favourable  to  the  development  of  both.  I  re- 
fer to  the  increased  facilities  for  transportation  and 
communication  which  have  come  with  steam  and 
electricity.  These  are  the  forces  which  have  so  pro- 
digiously stimulated  organization  in  all  directions. 
They  make  the  social  organization  and  government  of 
100,000,000  people  inhabiting  a  continent  to-day  far 
easier  and  simpler  than  the  social  organization  and 
government  of  the  few  colonists  occupying  one  tenth 
of  that  area  when  the  Union  was  formed.  At  the  same 
time  these  forces  operating  through  the  press  and 
through  the  contacts  of  commerce  are  bringing  all 
civilizations  into  touch  and  creating  a  universal  rivalry, 
are  making  the  world  a  forum,  thus  producing  the 
stimulus  of  a  perpetual  conflict  of  ideas,  which  con- 
stitute the  most  favourable  conditions  for  the  develop- 
ment of  the  individual.  In  a  word,  these  great  forces 
which  are  now  exerting  so  profound  an  influence  on 
civilization  are  far  more  favourable  to  organization 
than  the  conditions  which  produced  the  vast  organiza- 


202  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

tions  of  Asia,  and  at  the  same  time  are  much  more 
stimulating  to  the  individual  than  those  which  gave  the 
first  impulse  to  the  individualism  of  Europe.  "Surely 
such  a  change,  harnessing  together  to  the  chariot  of 
the  world's  progress  these  two  principles  which  for 
thousands  of  years  have  drawn,  now  one  and  then  the 
other,  or  one  against  the  other,  is  so  significant  that  it 
marks  nothing  less  than  the  beginning  of  a  new  era  in 
the  history  of  the  race."1 
1  The  writer's  "  New  Era,"  p.  27.  See  the  whole  passage,  pp.  22-40. 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE  NEW  PROBLEM  OF  LAWLESSNESS  AND 
OF  LEGISLATION 

I.    LAWLESSNESS 

THE  Great  Republic  has  stamped  upon  itself  the 
mark  of  Cain. 

In  the  United  States  from  1885  to  1912  inclusive 
there  were  202,679  murders  and  homicides.  These 
figures  are  the  total  of  the  numbers  annually  reported 
by  the  Chicago  Tribune  for  twenty-eight  years.  For 
the  last  ten  years  the  annual  average  has  been  8,818. 
The  Hon.  Andrew  D.  White,  writing  in  1912  and 
referring  to  the  number  of  homicides  in  this  country 
during  the  preceding  year  as  upward  of  8,000,  says: 
"I  need  hardly  remind  your  readers  that  no  other 
civilized  country  shows  any  approach  to  the  figures 
above  given.  Great  Britain  and  the  British-American 
dominions  upon  our  borders,  which  are  supposed  to 
live  under  laws  substantially  like  our  own,  have  rela- 
tively only  about  one  tenth  of  the  yearly  percentage 
of  murders  shown  by  the  statistics  of  the  United 
States.  ...  A  similar  difference,  greatly  to  our 
disadvantage,  exists  between  Continental  European 
nations  and  our  own."  The  American  Prison  As- 
sociation's committee  on  criminal  procedure  declares 
that  "  10,000  homicides  are  committed  in  this  country 
every  year  —  more  than  the  aggregate  number  for 
any  ten  civilized  nations  exclusive  of  Russia."  One 


204  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

of  the  judges  of  Georgia  has  declared  from  the  bench 
that  there  are  more  homicides  committed  in  that  one 
State  than  in  the  whole  British  Empire,  with  its 
population  of  400,000,000. 

But  the  fatal  outcome  of  hot-blooded  quarrels, 
however  numerous,  cannot  brand  us  so  deeply  with 
the  mark  of  Cain  as  do  the  lynchings  in  which  large 
numbers  often  participate.  Not  content  with  in- 
flicting quick  and  sure  death,  the  favourite  diversion 
of  the  mob,  reverting  to  the  savagery  of  the  Dark 
Ages,  is  to  roast  its  writhing  victim  at  the  stake, 
while  the  community  complacently  looks  on,  and 
enterprising  newspaper  men  take  snapshots  at  the 
horror  from  commanding  windows. 

Seven  years  ago  Judge  Amidon  stated  that  "during 
the  last  seventy-five  years  nowhere  in  the  British 
Empire  has  a  man  been  snatched  from  the  custody 
of  the  law  and  sacrificed  to  mob  violence."1  Con- 
trast this  statement  with  the  fact  that  in  the  United 
States  more  than  half  a  hundred  are  done  to  death 
by  "lynch  law"  in  a  single  year,  —  some  of  them 
having  been  taken  violently  from  the  sheriff's 
keeping. 

The  most  civilized  land  is  not  altogether  free  from 
violence,  and  is  liable  to  mobs,  which  are  the  most 
merciless  and  ferocious  of  all  wild  beasts.  Our  un- 
speakable shame  lies  not  so  much  in  the  horrible 
crimes  of  a  maddened  mob  as  in  the  cool  and  reasoned 
justification  of  such  barbarism  on  the  part  of  men 
who  are  supposed  to  be  civilized.  This  revolting 
lawlessness  was,  a  few  years  ago,  elaborately  defended 
before  a  Chautauqua  audience.  The  Governor  of 
Arkansas,  the  chief  guardian  of  the  laws  of  the  common- 

1  The  Outlook,  July  21,  1906. 


LAWLESSNESS  AND  LEGISLATION      205 

wealth,  made  a  public  defence  of  negro  lynching, 
and  promptly  received  from  the  lips  of  President 
Roosevelt  the  rebuke  he  so  richly  merited.  Another 
Governor  recently  announced:  "In  South  Carolina, 
let  it  be  understood  that  when  a  negro  assaults  a 
white  woman  all  that  is  needed  is  that  they  get  the 
right  man  and  they  who  get  him  will  neither  need 
nor  receive  a  trial."  He  forgot  to  mention  to  his 
constituents  by  what  judicial  procedure  an  insensate 
mob  was  to  make  sure  of  getting  "the  right  man." 
And  in  reply  to  the  obvious  and  unanswerable  criti- 
cism that  the  constitution  of  his  state  guaranteed 
to  every  man  accused  of  crime  a  legal  trial,  he  cried, 
"To  hell  with  the  constitution!"  This  was  not  said 
to  a  company  of  "lewd  fellows  of  the  baser  sort," 
but  to  the  "House  of  Governors,"  and  to  the  general 
public.  We  have  heard  of  teaching  crime  by  sug- 
gestion, but  this  was  instigating  crime  by  an  official 
pledge  of  immunity  from  punishment.  And  this 
teacher  of  anarchy  goes  unimpeached.  A  candidate 
for  Congress  asks  for  the  suffrages  of  his  fellow  citizens 
explicitly  on  the  ground  that  he  stands  on  the  platform 
of  "  lynch  law,"  which  is  treason  to  democracy.  Think 
of  it!  A  man  asks  to  be  elected  to  the  highest  law- 
making  body  in  the  land  on  the  ground  of  his  con- 
tempt for  law.  A  man  could  adopt  such  a  political 
platform  only  in  the  belief  that  a  majority  of  his 
constituents  had  a  like  contempt  for  law.  And 
most  atrocious  of  all,  a  clergyman  prostitutes  the 
pulpit  to  incite  the  people  to  mob  violence,  and  later 
from  the  same  pulpit  justifies  the  appalling  crime  of 
which  they  have  been  guilty.  What  blasphemy  to 
add  divine  sanction  to  the  violation  of  divine  law! 
What  is  the  heresy  better  worthy  of  a  church  trial? 


206  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

And  yet,  so  far  as  I  know,  that  man  could  remain  in 
the  ministry  unchallenged. 

It  may  be  said  that  the  lawlessness  above  mentioned 
is  of  a  special  sort,  and  originated  under  exceptional 
conditions.  But  in  view  of  the  municipal  corruption, 
so  often  and  so  recently  laid  bare,  the  United  States 
may  be  as  justly  accused  of  having  an  itching  palm 
as  of  being  red-handed.  Indeed,  I  do  not  know 
of  any  class  of  crimes  to  which  we  can  plead  "Not 
guilty."  The  Century  Magazine, 1  in  an  editorial 
entitled  "Lawlessness  the  National  Vice,"  said: 
"  In  the  last  twelve  months  every  variety  of  lawlessness 
known  to  man  —  private  and  official,  labour  and 
corporate,  family  and  social  —  has  been  on  view,  in 
a  degree  of  extreme  development.  And  although 
these  many  crying  instances  were  not  evenly  distrib- 
uted over  the  country,  similar  events,  differently  placed 
in  other  years,  remind  us  that  no  particular  region 
has  a  monopoly  of  lawlessness,  or  is  wholly  immune." 
We  need  not  wonder  that  a  very  able  and  discrimi- 
nating Englishman,  a  lecturer  in  Cambridge  Univer- 
sity, who  had  been  making  a  close  study  of  us  for 
some  months,  when  asked  what  he  liked  least  in 
America,  replied:  "You  Americans  do  not  obey  law 
because  it  is  law." 

When  we  ask  why  Americans  are  lawless,  impromptu 
explanations  are  at  hand.  We  are  told,  and  truly, 
that  the  punishment  of  crime  is  neither  sure  nor 
swift;  that  so  far  as  capital  crime  is  concerned  our 
administration  of  justice  has  broken  down;  that  in 
Germany,  for  instance,  convictions  equal  95  per 
cent,  and  a  fraction,  while  here  they  are  only  1.3 
per  cent.;  that  here  men  who  are  undoubtedly  guilty 

1  For   June,    1910. 


LAWLESSNESS  AND  LEGISLATION      207 

are  permitted  to  escape  on  mere  technicalities.  Mr. 
White  quotes  an  eminent  judge  as  saying:  "The 
taking  of  life  as  a  penalty  for  high  crime,  by  due 
process  of  law,  and  under  the  most  careful  safeguards, 
seems  to  be  the  only  way  of  taking  life  to  which  the 
average  American  has  any  objection."  But  capital 
crimes  are  not  the  only  ones  we  are  loath  to  punish. 
The  annual  report  of  the  Police  Commissioner  of 
New  York  City  informs  us  that,  during  1912,  18,556 
criminals  were  let  off  under  suspended  sentences; 
that  of  these,  417  had  been  convicted  of  burglary, 
548  of  petty  larceny,  346  of  grand  larceny,  and  18 
of  rape,  which  in  several  of  our  States  is  punishable 
by  death  or  life  imprisonment.  We  are  further 
informed  that  "the  Judges  restored  to  the  proprietors 
of  gambling  houses  39  roulette  wheels,  36  roulette 
tables,  16  faro  tables,  11  crap  tables  ...  11  steel 
doors  designed  to  defend  the  places  against  police  raids, 
67,000  poker  chips  .  .  .  and  other  paraphernalia 
necessary  for  gambling."  Why  should  property  which 
can  have  only  a  lawless  use  be  returned  to  breakers 
of  the  law?  In  many  of  our  courts  of  justice  crime 
does  not  seem  to  be  very  seriously  discouraged.  Fur- 
thermore, when  criminals,  at  great  expense,  have  finally 
been  locked  up,  an  excessive  use  of  the  pardoning 
power  often  opens  the  prison  door  and  turns  them  loose 
on  society.  Again,  we  are  reminded  that  officials 
who  have  sworn  to  enforce  the  law  make  its  execution 
depend  on  the  demands  of  public  opinion,  or  rather, 
on  their  interpretation  of  public  opinion.  Thus  the 
execution  of  the  law  becomes  optional  with  officials. 
Again,  we  are  told  that  the  root  of  the  whole  matter 
is  the  fact  that  there  is  little  discipline  in  the  typical 
American  family;  that  neither  in  the  home  nor  in  the 


208  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

school  are  our  children  trained  to  obey,  and,  therefore, 
grow  up  with  little  respect  for  law  or  authority  of 
any  kind. 

These  facts  are  beyond  dispute,  and  weighty,  but 
the  facts  themselves  need  to  be  accounted  for.  Why 
are  American  children  permitted  to  grow  up  without 
wholesome  discipline  at  home  or  at  school?  Why 
are  public  officials  permitted  to  regard  as  optional 
that  which  their  oath  of  office  requires  them  to  do? 
Why  are  we  so  slow  to  inflict  legal  punishment  and 
so  hasty  with  lynch  law? 

When  we  attempt  to  account  for  American  law- 
lessness, we  must  recognize  certain  historical  influ- 
ences. A  frontier  has  moved  across  the  continent 
in  advance  of  the  restraints  and  the  established  in- 
stitutions of  civilized  society;  and  frontiersmen,  hun- 
dreds of  miles  removed  from  a  court  of  justice,  not 
unnaturally  reverted  to  primitive  methods  and  took 
justice,  or  what  they  believed  to  be  justice,  into  their 
own  hands.  The  undisciplined  freedom  and  lawless 
retribution  of  the  frontier  have  exerted  an  influence 
on  every  section  of  the  country,  which  it  may  take 
several  generations  to  overcome. 

Again,  there  has  been  an  unquestioned  inheritance 
from  slavery.  Here  are  ten  million  negroes,  many  of 
whom  are  adult  children,  and  all  of  whom  are  the 
descendants  of  adult  children,  who  had  freedom  and 
its  rights  thrust  upon  them,  but  who  had  to  learn 
slowly,  if  at  all,  its  accompanying  duties.  They 
were  released  from  their  former  masters  long  before 
they  became  their  own  masters,  with  inevitable  results 
to  themselves,  to  their  children  and  to  society. 

Again,  millions  of  immigrants,  reared  under  paternal 
governments,  have  here  found  themselves  with  a  new 


LAWLESSNESS  AND  LEGISLATION      209 

freedom  from  supervision;  and,  compelled  in  many 
respects  to  become  a  law  unto  themselves,  it  is  not 
strange  that  they  have  often  mistaken  liberty  for 
license. 

But  when  all  these  causes  have  been  allowed  due 
weight  there  is  still  a  large  unexplained  remainder  of 
lawlessness.  Is  not  this  to  be  ascribed  to  American 
individualism? 

As  we  saw  in  the  preceding  chapter,  occidentals  are 
vastly  more  individualistic  than  orientals.  Of  all 
occidentals  the  most  individualistic  are  the  English- 
speaking  peoples;  and  of  all  English-speaking  peoples 
the  most  individualistic  are  the  Americans.  Pioneers 
are  generally  characterized  by  a  strong  individuality. 
They  must  needs  be  courageous,  independent,  re- 
sourceful, self-reliant.  Not  only  does  a  new  country, 
with  its  hardships  and  adventures,  act  as  a  principle 
of  selection  to  attract  such  men,  but  the  conditions 
of  life  on  the  frontiers  of  civilization  serve  to  inten- 
sify such  characteristics.  The  early  pioneers  in  the 
New  World  were  strongly  individualistic;  and  when 
the  westward  movement  began,  it  was  those  of  each 
succeeding  generation  who  had  most  of  the  pioneer 
spirit  that  pushed  on  into  the  wilderness  and  created 
a  new  frontier.  Lincoln's  strong  individuality  was  a 
natural  inheritance  from  five  generations  of  pioneers, 
reinforced  by  the  environment  of  his  early  life.  All 
Americans,  with  the  exception  of  recent  immigrants, 
have  been  themselves  pioneers  or  the  descendants  of 
pioneers.  This  has  done  much  to  stamp  them  with  a 
pronounced  individualism. 

A  scattered  population,  engaged  in  agriculture,  is 
independent;  each  farmer  does  his  own  thinking;  each 
is  his  own  master;  the  attention  of  each  is  fixed  on 


210  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

his  own  interests.  Such  a  people  are  proverbially 
individualistic;  and  until  recent  years  such  has  been 
the  inheritance  and  training  of  the  American  people 
from  the  beginning. 

The  tyranny  of  Church  and  State  in  France  and 
the  writings  of  the  Encyclopaedists,  Voltaire  and  Rous- 
seau, prepared  the  way  for  the  revolt  against  all 
authority  which  expressed  itself  in  the  Revolution. 
The  individualistic  spirit  of  the  American  colonists, 
which  blossomed  in  the  Declaration  of  Independence, 
was  naturally  friendly  to  French  ideas,  and  French 
support  of  American  arms  during  the  Revolutionary 
War  made  them  increasingly  popular.  Jefferson,  Frank- 
lin, and  Thomas  Paine,  who  did  so  much  to  shape  the 
opinions  and  the  institutions  of  the  young  republic, 
were  intensely  individualistic  in  their  teachings. 
There  was  accordingly  developed  a  philosophy  of  life 
which  was  thoroughly  individualistic  in  government, 
society,  and  in  industry;  and  which  was  reenforced 
by  the  individualistic  type  of  religion  that  the  German 
Reformation  had  stamped  on  Protestantism.  Thus 
by  the  interplay  of  these  various  influences  there  was 
evolved  an  intense  individualism  in  which  by  far  the 
greater  part  of  our  population  is  still  steeped. 

An  individualistic  community  is  lacking  in  social 
consciousness,  the  social  conscience,  and  the  social 
spirit.  It  has,  therefore,  only  a  dim  sense  of  law  which 
represents  society  and  guards  the  rights  of  all  against 
each,  and  of  each  against  all.  Hence  from  the  landing 
of  the  Pilgrims  to  the  present  time  there  has  been  a 
strong  disposition  to  make  the  individual  a  law  unto 
himself.  We  have  not  in  America,  and  apparently  have 
never  had,  the  profound  and  wholesome  reverence 
for  law  which  is  the  glory  of  Englishmen,  and  is  at 


LAWLESSNESS  AND  LEGISLATION      211 

the  same  time]the  strength  and  the  ornament  of  English 
institutions. 

We  are  now  prepared  to  examine  briefly  the  new 
elements  in  the  situation.  It  was  shown  in  the  pre- 
ceding chapter  that  in  recent  years,  for  the  first  time 
in  human  history,  conditions  have  become  favourable 
to  the  growth  of  the  social  spirit  and  the  higher  organi- 
zation of  society,  and,  at  the  same  time,  favourable 
to  the  further  individualizing  of  the  individual.  We 
have  seen  that  increasing  organization  was  the  inevi- 
table result  of  the  modern  industrial  system.  All  the 
conditions  of  modern  life  make  it  simply  impossible 
to  stay  the  tide  already  setting  strongly  toward  a 
larger,  more  conscious,  more  perfect  life  of  society. 
But  this  increasing  development  of  society  will  not  be, 
as  heretofore,  at  the  cost  of  individual  freedom  and 
growth.  As  will  be  shown  in  a  later  chapter,  it  will 
be  favourable  to  a  normal  individuation,  to  an  un- 
selfish individualism.  There  is,  however,  an  individ- 
ualism which  is  intensely  selfish,  and  with  this  the  new 
social  spirit  is  in  deadly  conflict. 

For  four  hundred  years  the  individual  has  been  gain- 
ing greater  importance.  The  time  was  when  Church 
or  State  controlled  or  tried  to  control  his  religious  faith, 
his  political  opinion,  his  occupation,  his  habits,  and 
many  of  the  small  details  of  life.  King  Christian  II 
of  Denmark,  for  instance,  who  lived  in  the  beginning 
of  the  sixteenth  century,  "prescribed  by  heavy  penalty, 
not  only  how  the  street  and  entry  of  houses  ought  to 
be  swept,  but  when  and  how  benches  and  tables  in 
the  houses  were  to  be  scoured."1  Now  the  individual 
enjoys  not  only  the  civil  and  religious  liberty  guaran- 
teed  by  law,  but  also  that  emancipation,  that  larger  free- 

'Lieber's  "Political  Ethics," -Vol.  I,  p.  201. 


212  THE  NEW  WORLD -LIFE 

dom  conferred  by  science  and  invention.  Electricity, 
steam,  and  chemistry  have  given  to  the  untitled  man 
a  freedom  of  speech,  a  liberty  of  travel,  an  exercise  of 
power  which  the  proudest  monarch  did  not  possess 
a  few  years  ago.  Add  to  all  this  the  resources  of  great 
wealth,  and  our  citizen  becomes  an  uncrowned  king, 
whose  orders  are  obeyed  by  thousands  even  in  distant 
lands.  Myriads  of  men  in  the  United  States  to-day 
have  power  to  resist  society  and  to  inflict  injury  upon 
it  never  possessed  before  even  by  great  noblemen. 
No  one  will  question  that  the  powerful  individualism 
of  many  of  these  men  is  of  the  selfish  type.  It  goes 
without  saying  that  large  numbers  of  our  wealthy 
men  exemplify  the  highest  type  of  citizenship;  but 
there  is  a  large  class  who  in  the  competitive  struggle 
have  developed  strong  personalities,  who  are  accus- 
tomed to  beat  down  obstacles,  who  have  acquired  the 
habit  of  success,  who  are  more  determined  as  to  the 
end  than  scrupulous  as  to  the  means,  and  who  will 
reach  the  goal  even  though  it  lies  beyond  broken  laws. 
The  conditions  which  produce  this  type  are  common 
and  will  continue.  Education  multiplies  wants,  liberty 
affords  the  opportunity  of  gratifying  them,  wealth 
provides  the  means,  and  self-gratification  stimulates 
self-will,  which  of  course  fosters  lawlessness.  This  is 
a  vicious,  abnormal,  and  dangerous  individualism, 
which  will  doubtless  continue  for  many  generations. 
And  it  is  a  type  by  no  means  confined  to  the  rich;  there 
is  self-indulgence  enough  in  every  class  of  society  to 
foster  an  assertion  of  self  which  is  thoroughly  anti- 
social. 

But  while  the  social  spirit  and  the  spirit  of  selfish 
individualism  are  both  found  in  alt  classes  of  society, 
there  are  forming  two  camps  new  in  recent  years, 


LAWLESSNESS  AND  LEGISLATION      213 

at  least  in  this  country,  between  which  a  portentous 
struggle  has  already  begun  —  a  struggle  between  the 
rights  of  property  and  the  rights  of  the  people,  the 
rights  of  the  privileged  few  and  the  rights  of  the  un- 
privileged many.  The  two  champions  in  this  struggle 
are  the  legislatures  and  the  courts.  The  legislatures, 
representing  of  course  popular  majorities,  enact  laws 
demanded  by  the  people.  This  legislation  often  seems 
to  intelligent  conservatives  dangerous  and  subversive 
of  fundamental  principles,  and  they  look  to  the  courts 
to  protect  their  rights.  To  this  appeal  the  courts 
are  more  than  liable  to  respond  by  declaring  the  new 
law  unconstitutional.  Take  a  single  example,  the 
decision  of  the  New  York  Court  of  Appeals  touching 
the  Workmen's  Compensation  Act.  The  law  con- 
cerning industrial  accidents  is  inadequate,  and  in- 
efficient, and  works  injustice  to  injured  men  and  their 
families.  A  commission,  appointed  by  the  legislature 
for  that  purpose,  after  a  careful  investigation  of 
the  whole  subject,  recommended  certain  legislation, 
which  though  of  a  radical  character  was  passed,  "not 
only  with  a  most  surprising  lack  of  protest  from  the 
employing  classes,  but  with  the  active  support  of  great 
employers.  .  .  .  This  legislation  was  supported 
by  associations  of  the  Bar  in  the  State,  whose  repre- 
sentatives urged  that  the  gross  injustice  of  the  present 
system  needed  radical  changes.  .  .  .  This  legisla- 
tion was  based  upon  a  principle,  not  new  and  untried, 
but  in  successful  operation  in  England  and  in  every 
great  commercial  country  in  Europe.  When  this  law 
was  tested  in  the  courts,  the  Court  of  Appeals,  however, 
declared  that  this  principle  —  which  was  social  justice 
as  recognized  in  England  and  on  the  Continent  — 
was  in  New  York  confiscation  of  property  of  employers 


214  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

without  due  process  of  law."1  It  was  therefore  uncon- 
stitutional, and  such  a  law  could  not  be  enacted 
without  first  accomplishing  the  almost  impossible 
task  of  amending  both  the  state  and  the  national  con- 
stitutions. 

When  the  fathers  shaped  and  the  colonists  adopted 
the  Constitution  and  formed  the  Union,  history  was 
filled  with  examples  of  the  encroachments  of  authority 
upon  the  rights  of  the  individual;  and  the  tyranny  of 
government  was  fresh  in  mind.  Considering,  therefore, 
the  age  in  which  our  fundamental  law  came  into  being, 
the  foreign  influences  and  the  domestic  conditions 
which  moulded  it,  we  cannot  wonder  that  it  was 
strongly  individualistic;  indeed,  it  would  have  been 
unaccountable  had  it  been  otherwise. 

Our  government  was  based  on  the  "social  contract" 
theory  of  society,  formulated  in  the  eighteenth  century, 
according  to  which  the  governed  reserved  certain 
natural  rights  of  which  they  could  never  be  deprived 
by  the  government  —  a  theory  of  society  long  since 
exploded.  That  conception  regarded  society  as  static 
or  at  rest,  and  logically  made  the  amending  of  our 
Constitution  exceedingly  difficult.  We  now  know  that 
society  is  dynamic  or  progressive,  and  federal  govern- 
ments established  since  our  own,  namely,  those  of  the 
Dominion  of  Canada,  the  German  Empire,  and  the 
Commonwealth  of  Australia,  all  make  the  amending 
of  the  fundamental  instrument  much  easier.  The 
English  constitution,  being  unwritten,  is  alive  and 
grows  with  the  growth  of  public  opinion;  ours  can  be 
changed  only  when  the  demand  becomes  overwhelming. 
A  fundamental  law  of  all  life  is  that  of  adjustment. 
We  are  in  the  midst  of  a  flood  of  changes,  to  which 
'George  W.  Alger  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly,  November  1911,  p.  662. 


LAWLESSNESS  AND  LEGISLATION      215 

timely  adjustment  must  be  made,  if  the  orderly 
development  of  the  nation  is  to  continue  and  popular 
upheavals  are  to  be  avoided.  If  our  federal  constitu- 
tion were  easily  adjusted  to  changed  conditions, 
necessary  amendments  would  be  frequent  and  slight. 
The  danger  now  is  that  all  adjustment  will  be  resisted 
until  the  inevitable  change  is  cataclysmal.  Count 
Leo  Tolstoi  wrote:  "Every  revolution  begins  when 
society  has  outgrown  the  view  of  life  on  which  the 
existing  forms  of  social  life  are  based."  The  new 
conditions  created  by  the  industrial  revolution  are 
rapidly  substituting  the  social  conception  of  life  for  the 
individualistic,  and  the  social  problems  thus  created 
are  not  soluble  on  individualistic  principles  which 
have  so  strong  a  hold  on  Americans.  As  Dr.  Goodnow, 
professor  of  Administrative  Law  at  Columbia  Univer- 
sity, says:  "The  tremendous  changes  in  political  and 
social  conditions  due  to  the  adoption  of  improved  means 
of  transportation  and  to  the  establishment  of  the 
factory  system  have  brought  with  them  problems 
whose  solution  seems  to  be  impossible  under  principles 
of  law  which  were  regarded  as  both  axiomatic  and 
permanently  enduring  at  the  end  of  the  eighteenth 
century."1 

The  framework  of  our  institutions  is  based  on  the 
discredited  principles  to  which  Professor  Goodnow 
refers.  Our  legislatures  are  straining  to  find  room  for 
much-needed  labour  legislation  inside  that  framework. 
Our  courts,  not  having  learned,  as  yet,  the  lesson  of 
"The  Chambered  Nautilus,"  declare  very  truly  that 
the  builders  of  that  structure  never  intended  it  to 
shelter  anything  of  the  kind.  Now  the  question  is, 
Will  civilization  take  up  permanent  quarters  in  the 

1  "Social  Reform  and  the  Constitution,"  p.  1. 


216  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

eighteenth  century  along  with  the  courts,  or  will 
something  happen?  I  more  than  suspect  that  something 
will  happen,  but  it  is  not  yet  clear  what  that  something 
will  be.  Some  critics  of  the  judiciary  believe  that 
it  is  preparing  the  way  for  socialism  because  they  are 
convinced,  with  the  socialists,  that  the  conservatism  of 
the  courts  is  a  demonstration  of  "the  powerlessness 
of  the  American  state  to  bring  about  justice  by  law, 
and  of  the  breakdown  of  constitutional  government." 
Others  believe  that  the  courts  are  preparing  the  way 
for  the  popular  recall  of  judicial  decisions  or  of  judges, 
which  is  already  demanded  by  many  of  the  people  as 
was  shown  by  the  large  Progressive  vote  in  the  Presi- 
dential election  of  1912.  Again  there  are  judges  and 
lawyers,  who  are  as  much  dissatisfied  as  the  people, 
and  who  are  asking  the  courts  to  reform  themselves. 
Said  Justice  O.  Howard,  of  the  Appellate  Division  of 
the  Supreme  Court  of  New  York,  in  a  recent  address 
already  quoted :  "  It  is  not  well  to  scoff  at  the  muttering 
of  the  people;  there  is  much  reason  for  it.  Revolu- 
tionary measures  are  to  be  avoided.  The  movement 
should  begin  from  within;  it  is  well  for  the  great  jurists 
of  the  land,  the  judges  of  the  last  resort,  to  take  heed 
of  the  temper  of  the  times;  unbend  from  their  conser- 
vatism and  work  out  the  reform  themselves.  .  .  . 
Unless  the  judges  act  the  people  will  act."  Senator 
La  Follette  writes:  "A  new  problem  entered  into  the 
movement  toward  democracy  —  the  problem  of  re- 
moving the  dead  hand  of  precedent  from  the  judiciary 
and  infusing  into  it  the  spirit  of  the  times."1  Presi- 
dent Hadley  of  Yale  University  is  quoted  as  saying: 
"We  are  in  the  dilemna  where  the  work  of  the  courts 

'From  the  Introduction  of  Gilbert  E.  Roe's  "Our  Judicial  Oli- 
garchy." 


LAWLESSNESS  AND  LEGISLATION     217 

must  be  undone  or  we  shall  have  a  revolution.  And 
"the  great  jurist,"  Judge  Seymour  D.  Thompson, 
protesting  against  the  encroachments  of  the  courts 
upon  the  people's  power,  added:  "There  is  danger 
that  the  people  will  see  these  things  all  at  once;  see 
their  enrobed  judges  doing  their  thinking  on  the 
side  of  the  rich  and  powerful;  see  them  look  with 
solemn  cynicism  upon  the  sufferings  of  the  masses,  nor 
heed  the  earthquake  when  it  begins  to  rock  beneath 
their  feet;  see  them  present  a  spectacle  not  unlike 
that  of  Nero  fiddling  while  Rome  burns.  There  is 
danger  that  the  people  will  see  all  this  at  one  sudden 
glance,  and  that  the  furies  will  then  break  loose  and 
that  all  hell  will  ride  on  their  wings." 

A  discussion  of  our  courts  is  pertinent  to  our  subject 
because  they  have  done  so  much  to  undermine  popular 
confidence  in  themselves  and  in  the  law.  Whatever 
may  be  said  of  American  individualism,  as  a  people 
we  have  had  until  recent  years  unquestioning  venera- 
tion for  our  judiciary,  which  has  done  much  to  curb 
our  lawless  temper.  Our  fathers  feared  the  abuse  of 
executive  power,  and,  therefore,  restricted  it  within 
narrow  limits.  We  have  often  had  occasion  to  dis- 
trust both  the  intelligence  and  the  honesty  of  our 
legislators,  but  we  have  had  great  reverence  both  for 
the  purity  and  the  learning  of  our  judges.  Many 
decisions  of  our  courts,  however,  during  the  last  few 
years  have  rudely  shaken  this  confidence,  especially 
on  the  part  of  workingmen.  There  is  a  long  list  of 
judicial  decisions  which  they  believe  to  have  been  un- 
justly made  in  favour  of  capital  and  against  labour.1 
They  no  longer  look  upon  the  law  as  made  by  the 
people  and  for  the  people.  There  is  a  very  common 
lNorth  American  Review,  November,  1911. 


218  THE  NEW  WORLD -LIFE 

conviction  among  them  that  the  law  is  one  thing  and 
justice  another;  and  a  law  which  is  believed  to  be  unjust 
has  no  sanctity.  It  may  inspire  fear  but  not  respect. 
And  when  the  mob  feels  its  strength,  it  is  a  short  and 
easy  step  from  despising  the  law  to  violating  it.  There 
are  in  all  lands  numbers  of  men  who  deliberately 
commit  crime  and  take  their  chances  of  being  caught. 
They  do  not  blaspheme  the  law  as  unjust;  the  trouble 
is  they  do  not  fear  it.  Far  more  significant  and  in- 
comparably more  dangerous,  especially  in  a  republic, 
is  the  lack  of  confidence  in  the  law  shown  by  multi- 
tudes of  peaceably  disposed  and  industrious  citizens. 
Such  distrust  undermines  the  very  foundations  of  our 
institutions  and  prepares  the  way  for  revolution  and 
anarchy. 

It  is  not  unnatural  to  assume  that  the  labouring 
classes  are  biased  against  the  courts,  but  there  has 
been  much  in  the  conduct  of  the  judiciary  in  recent 
years  to  impair  the  confidence  of  an  unbiased  public, 
and  to  excite  general  criticism;  for  instance,  the 
reversal  of  lower  courts  by  higher,  which  courts  are 
in  turn  often  reversed  by  a  supreme  court.  A  single 
illustration  must  suffice.  "In  the  year  1910  Basso, 
a  bootblack,  in  the  basement  of  one  of  the  business 
blocks  of  Rochester,  refused  to  serve  Burks  because 
the  latter  was  a  negro.  The  law  of  the  State  of  New 
York  requires  full  and  equal  accommodation  in  hotels 
and  *other  places  of  public  accommodation.'  The 
question,  therefore,  was:  Is  a  bootblack-stand  a  place 
of  'public  accommodation'?  The  first  court  said, 
'No';  the  second,  'Yes';  the  third  'No';  the  fourth, 
'Yes,  but.'"1  The  decision  seemed  to  be  a  toss-up 

'Cited  by  Rev.  Percy  S.  Grant  in  North  American  Review,  Novem- 
ber, 1911. 


LAWLESSNESS  AND  LEGISLATION      219 

between  the  odd  and  even  number  of  courts.  Law  so 
construed  and  determined  would  not  appear  to  have 
an  overwhelming  amount  of  inherent  "majesty." 

And  not  only  do  different  courts  differ  as  to  the 
interpretation  or  constitutionality  of  the  law,  but  differ- 
ent members  of  the  same  court.  Many  Federal  and 
state  statutes  have  been  set  aside  by  the  Supreme 
Court  of  the  United  States,  and  usually  by  a  divided 
vote.  Sometimes  a  single  vote  has  been  decisive. 
A  notable  instance  was  the  decision  concerning  the 
income  tax  in  1895.  It  was  first  approved  by  a 
majority  of  one.  A  month  later  Justice  Shiras  changed 
his  vote,  which  reversed  the  court.  Thus  one  man  put 
the  Supreme  Court  on  record  on  both  sides  of  the  same 
question.  For  thirty  days  the  statute  was  constitu- 
tional, and  then  by  the  same  authority  the  law,  un- 
changed, became  unconstitutional.  While  a  majority 
of  one  is  decisive  as  to  what  the  law  is,  it  may  well  leave 
a  doubt  in  the  lay  mind  as  to  what  it  ought  to  be. 

Workingmen  are  not  altogether  alone  in  thinking 
that  the  law  or  its  administration  discriminates 
against  the  poor  man.  It  may  be  that  Dives  retains 
the  greatest  legal  talent  which  clears  him  on  some  tech- 
nicality or  otherwise.  If  convicted,  he  often  gets  off 
with  a  fine,  while  the  poor  man  goes  to  prison.  Or, 
if,  after  exhausting  all  possibilities  of  appeal,  Dives  is 
finally  locked  up,  powerful  influences  are  enlisted  to 
procure  an  early  pardon.  Whether  or  not  the  poor 
man's  dissatisfaction  with  the  law  is  justified,  it  is  very 
real.  Before  "  Captain  Jack"  of  the  Modoc  Indians  was 
executed  for  the  "Tragedy  of  the  Lavabeds,"  he  was 
asked  if  he  had  anything  to  say.  In  reply  he  broke 
a  number  of  twigs  and  laid  them  on  the  ground  in  a 
straight  line,  a  short  distance  from  each  other.  Point- 


220  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

ing  at  the  first  he  said,  "White  man";  at  the  second 
"Indian";  at  the  third,  "White  man";  at  the  fourth, 
"Indian,"  and  so  on  throughout  the  row.  Then 
taking  a  stick  and  drawing  a  zigzag  line  which  in- 
cluded every  other  twig,  he  said :  "  Crooked  line  white 
man's  law  —  Take  in  every  Indian  —  Leave  out  every 
white  man."  The  working  man  has  very  much  such 
a  conception  of  what  he  calls  "the  rich  man's  law." 

A  large  number  of  workingmen  have  come  to  believe 
that  justice  is  denied  them,  and  that  their  only  re- 
course is  a  labour  "war"  —  a  dangerous  word,  which 
befogs  many  a  judgment  and  excuses  violence  abhor- 
rent to  the  common  conscience.  The  dynamite 
conspirators  convicted  at  Indianapolis  afford  an 
example.  We  cannot  believe  that  their  crimes  were  ex- 
cused by  labour  in  general,  but  it  is  evident  they  must 
have  represented  many  besides  themselves.  Had 
those  thirty-three  men  all  lived  in  the  same  city,  their 
crimes  would  have  been  far  less  significant.  The  fact 
that  they  lived  in  fourteen  different  states  and  twenty- 
three  different  cities,  from  Boston  to  San  Francisco  and 
from  Minneapolis  to  New  Orleans,  shows  that  their 
attitude  of  mind  is  not  local.  If  there  was  one  such 
man  in  each  of  twenty-three  large  cities,  there  were 
doubtless  a  considerable  number  or  many  in  those 
cities  and  in  others.  Resort  to  dynamite  is  simply 
an  extreme  illustration  of  the  methods  deliberately 
adopted  by  the  Industrial  Workers  of  the  World. 
Syndicalism,  which  has  made  its  power  felt  in  France 
and  England  and  in  other  European  countries,  is  an 
expression  of  the  modern  and  abnormal  individualism 
which  deliberately  proposes  to  accomplish  its  aim  by 
violence.  The  disorders  which  it  inaugurates  are  not 
the  wild  and  unpremeditated  excesses  of  a  passionate 


LAWLESSNESS  AND  LEGISLATION      221 

mob,  but  deliberately  planned  methods,  which  have 
been  duly  justified  by  a  reasoned  philosophy.  Syndi- 
calism expressly  repudiates  political  and  legal  methods 
as  too  slow.  It  exhibits  a  cool  contempt  of  authority 
which  is  by  no  means  confined  to  the  United  States, 
but  is  symptomatic  of  the  times.  The  militant 
methods  of  the  English  suffragettes  afford  another 
illustration  of  the  same  thing.  Their  unwomanly 
and  un-English  lawlessness  is  an  assertion  of  the 
new  and  extreme  individualism  —  an  individualism 
which  is  false  because  it  is  detrimental  to  social  progress. 
Women  who  attempt  to  demonstrate  their  fitness  to 
make  laws  by  violating  them  are  only  injuring  a  most 
worthy  cause  which  is  destined  to  triumph  not  only 
in  England  but  everywhere  else  by  virtue  of  its  in- 
herent reasonableness  and  equity.  The  studied  vio- 
lence employed  both  by  syndicalists  and  suffragettes 
is  a  modern  application  of  the  Jesuitical  teaching  that 
the  end  justifies  the  means.  St.  Paul  expresses  his 
opinion  of  those  who  say,  "'Let  us  do  evil  that 
good  may  come,'  whose  damnation,"  he  says,  "is 
just."1 

There  is  appearing  both  in  Europe  and  in  the 
United  States  an  open  conflict  between  the  constituted 
authorities  on  the  one  hand  and  men  and  women  on 
the  other  who  believe  that  they  have  rights  which 
are  denied  them  by  the  law;  and  this  conflict  will  be 
waged  by  a  much  more  developed  and  determined 
individualism  than  has  ever  before  entered  upon  a 
struggle  for  popular  rights. 

The  most  serious  part  of  such  a  conflict  is  the  fact 
that  so  many  estimable,  law-abiding  people  are  on 
the  wrong  side  of  the  real  question,  and  so  many  law- 

'Rom.  3:8. 


222  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

breakers  are  on  the  right  side  of  it,  which  serves  to 
confuse  the  issue  and  to  prolong  the  struggle. 

It  is  urgently  important  for  the  judiciary  to  dis- 
cover the  twentieth  century,  and  for  the  courts  and 
legislatures  to  adjust  the  law  to  the  changed  condi- 
tions of  a  new  civilization;  in  a  word,  to  transfer  the 
law  from  the  wrong  to  the  right  side  of  the  conflict, 
and  so  end  the  strife.  To  quote  once  more  from 
Justice  Howard  of  New  York's  Supreme  Bench: 
"The  laws  will  command  respect  only  when  they  are 
worthy  of  respect.  Wooden  ploughs  once  elicited 
admiration;  to  use  them  now  would  excite  only  ridicule. 
Many  old  laws  concerning  co-employers,  contributory 
negligence,  assumed  risks,  master  and  servant, 
rules  of  procedure  and  rules  of  evidence  are  wooden 
ploughs;  the  use  of  them  now  obstructs  progress  and 
defeats  justice.  It  is  almost  superstition  to  venerate 
ancient  laws."  This  brings  us  to  a  brief  discussion  of 

II.      THE   NEW  PROBLEM  OF  LEGISLATION 

Readjustment  to  a  new  civilization  is  a  bewildering 
task  of  great  magnitude,  which  grows  greater  and  more 
imperative  the  longer  it  is  delayed.  If  resisted  too 
long,  the  only  alternative  is  violent  revolution. 
Transition  from  a  civilization  which  is  individualistic, 
rural,  and  agricultural  to  one  which  is  collective, 
urban  and  industrial  involves  an  enormous  amount 
of  legislation.  New,  multiplied,  and  close  relations 
create  new  rights  and  new  duties  which  must  be  recog- 
nized by  new  laws.  The  coming  of  steam  has  turned 
over  to  women  and  children  work  which  once  required 
the  muscle  of  men.  The  coming  of  the  factory  system 
and  of  agricultural  machinery  has  transformed  the 
home.  There  are  new  dangers  to  health,  to  life  and 


LAWLESSNESS  AND  LEGISLATION      223 

limb;  new  perils  to  the  family;  and  new  moral  pitfalls 
for  the  young.  The  organization  of  industry  has 
changed  all  the  conditions  of  labour.  There  is  scarcely 
a  human  interest  or  relationship  which  has  not  been 
profoundly  affected,  scarcely  a  field  of  human  en- 
deavour which  has  not  been  materially  changed.  We 
might  as  well  try  to  do  the  work  of  the  twentieth 
century  with  the  tools  of  the  eighteenth  as  to  attempt 
to  meet  modern  needs  with  the  laws  and  precedents  of 
half  a  dozen  generations  ago. 

During  the  last  half  century,  since  Western  civiliza- 
tion became  so  obviously  transitional,  there  has  been 
an  immense  increase  in  the  volume  of  legislation;  as 
Mr.  Bryce  tells  us,  "incomparably  greater  than  in  any 
previous  age";  and  it  is  much  greater  in  the  United 
States  than  anywhere  in  Europe.  With  the  Anglo- 
Saxon's  faith  in  the  ballot  box  as  a  panacea  for  political 
and  social  ills,  some  thousands  of  men  are  sent  to  our 
legislative  halls  every  year  or  two  who  are  expected 
to  accomplish  certain  results  by  making  new  laws 
or  amending  old  ones;  hence  the  flood  of  legislation, 
which  is  as  regular,  but  by  no  means  as  beneficent,  as 
the  annual  inundation  of  the  Nile,  and  which  adds, 
on  the  average,  some  15,000  laws  and  25,000  pages  to 
the  statute  books  of  the  United  States  every  year. 
The  adjournment  of  the  Sixty-second  Congress  left 
38,200  pending  bills  to  die  automatically.  Besides 
Congress,  there  are  forty-eight  state  legislatures  which 
are  no  mean  tributaries  to  the  flood.  Within  a  few 
days  after  the  opening  of  the  New  York  Legislature 
of  1913  over  twelve  hundred  bills  were  introduced; 
and  during  the  previous  year  there  were  2,859. 

Notice  briefly  the  results  of  this  legislative  con- 
gestion. A  wise  and  independent  judgment  upon 


224  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

each  of  the  hundreds  or  thousands  of  bills  introduced 
would  require  a  knowledge  of  the  fundamental  prin- 
ciples of  jurisprudence,  acquaintance  with  the  existing 
body  of  law,  and  familiarity  with  perhaps  a  dozen 
different  sciences.  To  ask  this  of  each  legislator  is  of 
course  to  demand  the  impossible.  These  bills  are  of 
necessity  referred  to  committees  which  have  power 
to  kill  and  to  make  alive.  There  results  the  lobby  with 
the  special  pleading  of  supposed  experts  who,  generally 
speaking,  are  by  no  means  disinterested,  together  with 
a  system  of  compromises  and  exchanges  between  mem- 
bers of  different  committees,  so  that  few  bills  are 
intelligently  passed  or  rejected  on  their  merits;  and 
usually  a  mass  of  legislation  is  rushed  through  at  the 
last  with  little  or  no  scrutiny. 

Much  of  this  legislation  is  superfluous.  A  large 
proportion  of  it  is  of  a  special  character,  and  is  enacted 
because  general  laws  applicable  in  the  premises  have 
been  permitted  to  become  dead  letters.  Another 
large  proportion  is  ineffective  —  a  part  of  it  intention- 
ally so.  Sometimes  political  bosses  permit  the  passage 
of  a  "reform"  measure  to  satisfy  the  "truly  good," 
and  so  quiet  agitation  and  keep  the  disaffected  in 
line;  but  they  see  to  it  that  the  law  has  no  teeth. 
The  reformers  thank  God  for  their  "victory,"  dismiss 
the  committees  whose  hard  work  has  aroused  the 
public,  and  return,  one  to  his  farm,  another  to  his 
merchandise,  only  to  discover  in  due  course  that  the 
new  law  is  useless  or  worse. 

Again,  laws  enacted  with  the  best  of  intentions 
are  not  infrequently  so  full  of  loopholes  that  an  un- 
scrupulous lawyer  can  show  a  client  how  to  escape 
the  meshes  of  the  net. 

Much  of  this  unscientific  legislation  produces  un- 


LAWLESSNESS  AND  LEGISLATION     225 

expected  and  perhaps  mischievous  results,  like  the 
famous  or  infamous  Raines  law  in  New  York,  which 
was  intended  to  restrain  the  liquor  traffic,  but  was 
found  to  promote  prostitution. 

Not  a  little  of  this  experimental  legislation  is  pro- 
nounced unconstitutional  by  the  courts. 

An  obvious  result  of  existing  conditions  and  methods 
is  the  rapid  creation  of  a  labyrinth  of  legislation  in 
which  a  man  with  the  best  of  intentions  might  easily 
get  lost.  Said  a  New  York  lawyer  to  an  acquaintance: 
"  Do  you  know  how  many  laws  you,  as  a  good  citizen, 
obey?"  "Couldn't  guess,"  was  the  reply.  "It  is 
not  possible  to  state  the  number  exactly,"  said  the 
lawyer,  "but  as  accurately  as  can  be  calculated  by  the 
author  of  a  voluminous  digest  of  laws  and  myself,  the 
number  is  21,260."  "Why,  I  had  no  idea  I  was  such 
a  good  man  as  all  that,"  remarked  the  "good  citizen." 
The  lawyer  continued.  "  This  includes  the  laws  of  the 
United  States,  but  does  not  include  the  absolutely 
innumerable  ordinances,  regulations  and  rules  issued 
by  police,  fire,  tenement,  water,  street,  licenses,  alder- 
manic,  dock,  charity  and  other  departments,  which 
have  all  the  force  of  law.  You  can  get  into  jail  quicker 
probably  for  disobeying  an  ordinance  of  the  Health 
Department  or  a  traffic  regulation  of  the  Police  De- 
partment than  you  can  for  disobeying  the  holy  tariff 
law." 

Another  evil  result  of  existing  methods  of  legislation 
is  the  great  diversity  and  conflict  of  laws  in  different 
states,  as  for  instance,  touching  marriage  and  divorce. 
Making  the  same  act  legal  in  one  state  and  illegal  in 
another  serves  to  blur  moral  distinctions.  It  would  be 
difficult  to  convince  the  average  mind  that  what  is 
morally  right  in  one  state  becomes  morally  wrong 


226  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

when  one  steps  over  an  imaginary  line.  Laws  which 
are  thus  inconsistent,  which  are  hastily  enacted,  easily 
amended,  and  often  evaded  or  unenforced,  cannot 
command  the  reverence  of  the  people. 

Our  great  body  of  complex,  confused,  and  rapidly 
increasing  legislation  invites  litigation,  obstructs  the 
courts  and  aggravates  the  law's  delay,  which  often 
furnishes  an  excuse  for  lynching,  thus  loosening  the 
very  foundations  of  popular  government  which  rest 
on  respect  for  law. 

Legislation  thus  far  in  all  countries  having  legis- 
lative bodies  has  been  mostly  by  rule  of  thumb.  It 
has  been  experimental  —  hit  and  miss  —  a  large  part 
of  it  "miss."  The  following  illustrates  how  we  are 
feeling  our  way.  A  commission  was  appointed  in 
1907  to  suggest  changes  in  the  charter  of  New  York 
City.  It  was  found  on  investigation  that  during  the 
ten  years  since  the  charter  was  adopted  the  legislature 
had  made  more  than  350  amendments  to  it;  in  addition 
to  which  there  had  been,  during  the  same  period, 
approximately  650  separate  and  special  acts  directly 
affecting  the  city. 

What  is  needed  now,  and  profoundly  needed,  is  scien- 
tific legislation.  Heretofore  such  legislation  has  been 
impossible.  The  necessary  data  for  it  have  not  been 
available.  Under  existing  conditions,  the  methods 
above  described  have  been  compulsory  and  the  results 
inevitable.  What  legislators  have  needed  and  lacked 
is  predigested  information  —  not  the  arguments  of 
interested  lobbyists,  but  the  findings  of  disinterested 
experts. 

The  Orient  stands  in  even  more  imperative  need  of 
scientific  legislation  than  the  Occident,  for  profounder 
changes  are  taking  place  there  than  here. 


LAWLESSNESS  AND  LEGISLATION      227 

In  a  later  chapter  it  will  be  shown  how  the  legislative 
bodies  of  the  world  may  apply  the  scientific  method 
to  the  solution  of  this  world  problem.  It  is  possible 
to  enact  many  laws  so  obviously  scientific,  so  de- 
monstrably  fit,  that  a  modernized  court  would  no 
more  think  of  declaring  them  unconstitutional  than 
it  would  think  of  declaring  unconstitutional  the  law 
of  gravitation  or  the  Magna  Charta.  Such  legislation 
will  be  the  first  step  and  a  long  step  toward  solving 
the  problem  of  lawlessness. 


CHAPTER  X 

THE  NEW  PROBLEM  OF  THE  CITY 

THE  city  is  superlative.  In  it  the  new  civilization 
is  at  its  best,  and  at  its  worst.  There  is  our  Chris- 
tianity most  aggressively  Christian,  and  there  is  our 
paganism  most  frankly  pagan.  There  is  life  most 
strenuous,  and  there  is  death  busiest.  There  are  the 
greatest  prizes  of  success,  and  there  are  the  uttermost 
failures.  There  are  the  excessively  rich,  and  there 
are  the  most  miserably  poor.  Dives  and  Lazarus  are 
there  separated  by  an  impassable  gulf,  but  within  easy 
seeing  distance;  and  it  seems  to  some  careless  observers 
that  Dives  is  in  heaven  and  Lazarus  in  hell.  The  city 
is  the  source  of  the  influences,  best  and  worst,  which 
permeate  the  land.  In  its  future  are  the  greatest 
possibilities  of  blessing  and  of  cursing  to  mankind. 

I.      THE    GREATER   CITY 

The  cities  of  the  future  will  certainly  be  much 
greater  than  those  of  the  past  or  present. 

Four  principal  causes  contributed  to  the  growth  of 
ancient  cities,  namely,  the  fear  of  enemies,  political 
considerations,  the  social  instinct,  and  commerce. 
These  causes  were  either  temporary  or  much  restricted 
in  their  action. 

For  thousands  of  years  city  walls  were  necessary  for 
protection;  but  sooner  or  later  war  destroyed  the  cities 
which  the  fear  of  war  had  produced. 


NEW  PROBLEM  OF  THE  CITY          229 

Many  ancient  cities  became  great  as  the  capitals  of 
mighty  empires;  but  their  glory  passed  with  that  of 
thrones  and  dynasties. 

The  social  instinct  has  always  been  operative,  but 
never  until  recent  years  has  it  been  free  to  produce 
the  results  possible  to  it.  Inasmuch  as  man  is  a 
gregarious  animal,  cities  have  always  been  as  large  as 
they  could  well  be.  Until  modern  times,  however, 
it  has  been  difficult  to  furnish  supplies  for  a  great  city. 
Food,  water,  fuel,  and  building  materials  could  be 
procured  only  with  great  labour  and  expense.  Now 
the  railway  and  the  triple-expansion  marine  engine  have 
made  it  possible  to  feed  any  number  of  millions  gath- 
ered at  one  point,  and  to  transport  building  materials 
and  fuel  thousands  of  miles,  while  scientific  engineer- 
ing supplies  water  to  large  populations  far  removed 
from  rivers  and  lakes  and  makes  possible  a  city  in  a 
desert.  Now  for  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  the 
race  is  the  social  instinct  fully  free  to  assert  itself. 

Commerce,  like  the  social  instinct,  has  been  a  per- 
manent factor  in  the  growth  of  cities,  but  it  is  a  thou- 
sandfold greater  now  than  it  was  in  ancient  times. 
Its  influence  as  a  city-builder  has  been  as  much  en- 
hanced by  the  conditions  of  the  new  civilization  as 
has  that  of  the  social  instinct.  When  we  contrast  a 
caravan  of  camels  with  a  transcontinental  freight 
train  of  100  cars,  and  a  little  coasting  ship  with  a 
transatlantic  liner,  we  have  a  basis  for  comparing 
the  cities  produced  by  ancient  commerce  with  those 
which  are  being  created  by  modern  commerce. 

Furthermore,  in  the  past,  commerce  unmade  as 
many  cities  as  it  made.  The  discovery  of  unknown 
countries  and  the  opening  of  new  routes  of  travel 
destroyed  commercial  supremacy  as  often  as  they 


230  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

created  it.  But  there  are  no  more  unknown  countries 
to  be  discovered,  and  after  the  cutting  of  the  Isthmian 
canal  there  will  be  no  more  geographical  changes  of  the 
first  magnitude.  The  great  world-routes  of  travel 
and  transportation  will  then  have  been  permanently 
established;  and  instead  of  destroying  with  one  hand 
while  she  builds  with  the  other,  commerce  will  work 
with  both  hands  for  the  perpetual  enlargement  of  the 
great  cities  of  the  earth. 

Moreover,  causes  which  for  thousands  of  years  de- 
stroyed cities  or  retarded  their  growth,  are  becoming  less 
operative  or  have  ceased  altogether.  Never  again  prob- 
ably will  a  city  be  laid  waste  by  a  victorious  army. 
When  the  Germans  captured  Paris  they  destroyed 
nothing  but  French  prestige.  Instead  of  pillaging  and 
burning  as  conquerors  used  to  do  they  demanded  a 
war  indemnity.  It  is  doubtless  safe  to  say  that, 
with  modern  facilities  of  transportation  and  with  the 
ever-continued  triumphs  of  medical  science,  famine 
and  pestilence  will  never  again  depopulate  a  city. 
In  the  long  past  the  difficulty  of  obtaining  an  adequate 
water  supply  prepared  the  way  for  great  conflagrations, 
made  filth  inevitable,  and  resulted  in  a  frightful  death- 
rate,  which  greatly  retarded  the  natural  growth 
of  the  city.  Modern  engineering,  progress  in  fire- 
proof construction,  and  the  science  of  sanitation  are 
steadily  and  surely  removing  these  age-long  limitations 
of  growth. 

Not  only  will  the  obstacles  to  the  growth  of  great 
cities  in  the  past  be  overcome  in  the  future,  and  the 
constructive  causes  be  far  more  operative,  but  there 
will  be  vastly  greater  populations  out  of  which  to  grow 
cities. 

We  have  no  certain  and  exact  knowledge  of  the 


NEW  PROBLEM  OF  THE  CITY          231 

population  of  the  entire  world  at  any  time  but  the 
most  intelligent  estimates  suffice  for  the  purposes  of 
rough  comparison.  According  to  Bodio,  as  remarked 
in  a  preceding  chapter,  the  population  of  the  earth 
at  the  death  of  the  Emperor  Augustus  was  54,000,000. 
At  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth  century  it  is  believed 
to  have  been  640,000,000,  and  at  the  beginning  of  the 
nineteenth  1,500,000,000.  Thus  according  to  these 
estimates  the  world's  inhabitants  increased  decidedly 
more  during  the  eighteenth  century  than  during  the 
seventeen  hundred  years  preceding.  Population  has 
increased  as  civilization  has  made  more  abundant 
provision  for  human  wants.  Since  the  English  took 
control  of  Egyptian  finances  in  1882  the  population 
has  increased  more  than  twice  as  fast  as  before.1 
According  to  Mulhall  the  population  of  Europe  hardly 
exceeded  50,000,000  five  hundred  years  ago.  It  is 
now  400,000,000;  and  to  these  great  numbers  must  be 
added  100,000,000  descendants  in  America  and  other 
non-European  lands. 

The  enormous  increase  of  European  populations 
in  recent  centuries  made  possible  the  surprising  growth 
of  large  cities.  After  the  decline  of  Rome,  Con- 
stantinople was  the  only  city  in  Europe  which  could 
boast  100,000  inhabitants.  At  the  beginning  of  the 
sixteenth  century  there  were  six  or  seven  such  cities, 
and  at  its  end  thirteen  or  fourteen.  In  1800  there 
were  only  22  cities  in  all  Europe  having  100,000 
inhabitants  or  more.  In  1900  the  number  had  risen 
to  no  less  than  139 ;  and  29  of  these  had  each  a  population 
of  400,000  or  more.  In  1800  our  metropolis  had  only 
79,216  inhabitants.  In  1900  it  had  3,437,202,  and  in 

'Prof.  Walter  Francis  Wilcox,  "The  Expansion  of  Europe  in  Its 
Influence  on  Population." 


232  THE  NEW  WORLD -LIFE 

1910  it  had  grown  to  4,766,883,  while  our  cities  of 
100,000  or  more  numbered  forty-seven,  and  contained 
nearly  20,000,000  people.  In  1800  no  capital  in 
Europe  had  a  population  of  1,000,000.  London  had 
958,800;  Paris, 546,900;  Berlin,  173,400;  Vienna,  232,000, 
and  St.  Petersburg  270,000.  The  latest  statistics 
of  these  cities  are  as  follows:  London,  7,252,963; 
Paris,  2,846,986;  Berlin,  2,064,153;  Vienna,  2,004,291, 
and  St.  Petersburg,  1,907,708.  Thus  in  af  single 
century  the  total  population  of  these  five  cities  in- 
creased over  700  per  cent.;  and  London  alone  has  now 
more  than  three  times  the  population  of  all  five  a  hun- 
dred years  ago. 

The  unprecedented  growth  of  the  city  during  the 
past  century  ought  to  prepare  us  for  an  immense 
development  during  the  present  century,  in  view  of 
the  fact  that  the  same  causes  continue  operative, 
and  that  there  is  every  reason  to  expect  a  continued 
expansion  of  the  world's  population. 

Sir  Robert  Giffen,  the  English  statistician,  believes 
that  "unless  some  great  internal  change  should  take 
place  in  the  ideas  and  conduct  of  the  European  races 
themselves,  this  population  of  500,000,000  will  in 
another  century  become  one  of  1,500,000,000  to 
2,000,000,000." 

But  the  growth  of  the  world's  population  is  by  no 
means  confined  to  the  European  races  as  some  seem 
to  think.  The  population  of  India  was  estimated  at 
178,500,000  in  1851;  it  is  now  300,000,000.  And 
according  to  Timothy  Richards,  a  British  missionary, 
who  is  a  mandarin  of  high  rank  and  who  has  been 
for  many  years  an  official  adviser  of  the  Chinese 
Government,  the  population  of  China  is  increasing 
4,000,000  a  year,  which  is  1  per  cent,  per  annum. 


NEW  PROBLEM  OF  THE  CITY          233 

It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  the  causes  which  have 
so  enormously  stimulated  the  growth  of  occidental 
populations  during  the  past  century  are,  with  the 
progress  of  the  new  civilization,  becoming  more  and 
more  operative  throughout  the  Orient,  reducing  the 
death  rate,  and  at  the  same  tune  raising  the  birth 
rate  by  multiplying  the  means  of  gaining  a  livelihood. 

Of  course  the  world's  population  cannot  increase 
indefinitely.  The  time  will  come  when  the  refinement 
of  the  nervous  organization  no  less  than  the  pressure 
of  population  on  the  means  of  subsistence  will  so  modify 
the  reproduction  of  the  race  as  to  establish  an  equilib- 
rium between  the  birth  rate  and  the  death  rate; 
but  that  time  for  the  world  at  large  is  yet  remote. 
With  the  agricultural  resources  of  Africa,  South  America, 
Australia,  Canada,  and  Siberia  only  very  partially 
developed,  and  the  food  products  of  the  United  States 
no  doubt  capable  of  being  much  more  than  doubled, 
while  vast  food  resources  of  the  sea  are  wholly  ignored, 
there  need  be  no  fear  that  the  world's  food  supply 
will  not  keep  pace  with  its  growing  population  for 
many  generations  to  come.  Dean  Bailey  of  Cornell 
University  is  bold  enough  to  say:  "Where  the  earth 
now  supports  one  human  being,  we  expect,  before  it 
die,  that  it  will  support  hundreds."1 

The  population  of  the  civilized  world  is  now  increasing 
about  1  per  cent,  per  annum,  and  at  that  rate  will 
double  in  less  than  a  century,  whereas  we  are  told  by 
Professor  Hollander  of  Johns  Hopkins  University  that 
during  the  past  fifteen  years  "the  average  annual 
increase  in  the  five  great  cereals,  wheat,  corn,  oats, 
rye,  and  barley,  has  been  about  2.5  per  cent."2  At 

"'The  Outlook  to  Nature,"  p.  52. 
'The  Atlantic,  October,  1912. 


234  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

which  rate  the  supply  of  cereals  will  double  in  less  than 
forty  years. 

Not  only  will  there  be  an  immense  increase  in  the 
population  of  the  world,  but  the  greater  part  of  this 
increase  will  be  so  distributed  as  to  give  a  tremendous 
impetus  to  American  commerce  and  a  corresponding 
stimulus  to  the  growth  of  American  cities.  Such  are 
the  room  and  resources  of  the  various  Pacific  lands 
as  to  insure  their  becoming  much  more  populous. 
It  is  a  striking  fact,  remarked  in  a  preceding  chapter, 
that  with  the  exception  of  Africa,  the  greater  part  of 
which  is  unfavourable  to  white  life,  most  of  the  sparsely 
occupied  and  habitable  portions  of  the  earth  are  ranged 
around  the  Pacific  —  Alaska,  Canada,  the  United 
States  west  of  the  Mississippi,  South  America,  New 
Zealand,  Australia,  and  Siberia.  Thus  the  greater 
part  of  the  room  for  the  expansion  of  the  race  is  pre- 
cisely here.  Europe  has  a  population  of  106.9  to  the 
square  mile;  Asia,  57.7;  Africa,1 15.7;  North  America, 
13.8  and  the  United  Sates  west  of  the  Mississippi  10.1  ;2 
South  America,  5.3;  and  Australasia,  only  1.4;  while 
that  of  Siberia  is  about  the  same  as  that  of  Austral- 
asia. The  present  population  of  these  regions  is  only 
one  fifth  that  of  Europe,  though  Europe  could  be 
carved  out  of  their  combined  area  six  times.3  It 
is  large  enough  to  make  all  Asia,  with  nearly  enough 
left  over  to  make  two  Europes,  and  yet  contains  only 
one  sixteenth  as  large  a  population  as  Europe  and 

ll  use  the  estimates  of  the  geographer  and  statistician  Ernest 
George  Ravenstein,  F.  R.  G.  S.  His  figures  for  Africa,  however,  are 
11.  I  deduct  the  Great  Sahara,  which  is  as  large  as  the  United 
States.  The  statistics  are  for  1890.  "Proceedings  of  the  Royal 
Geographical  Society." 

'Population  of  1910. 

*See  the  writer's  "Expansion,"  Chapter  VI. 


NEW  PROBLEM  OF  THE  CITY         235 

Asia.  These  countries  taken  together  have  greater 
natural  resources  than  the  two  continents  of  the  Old 
World,  and  when  well  developed  could  surely  sustain 
as  large  a  population  as  now  subsists  in  Europe  and 
Asia,  with  the  natural  resources  of  the  latter  so  par- 
tially developed.  That  would  mean  an  addition  of  about 
1,200,000,000  to  the  present  population  of  the  lands 
surrounding  the  Pacific.  If  these  lands  were  only 
one  hah*  as  densely  peopled  as  Asia  and  Europe,  they 
would  contain  734,00,000  instead  of  their  present 
75,000,000.  China  and  India,  with  their  mining  and 
manufacturing  resources  almost  wholly  undeveloped, 
support  720,000,000  inhabitants,  and  China  and  India 
might  be  carved  out  of  the  above  area  four  times. 
Without  question  these  Pacific  lands  will  be  peopled 
by  many  hundreds  of  millions,  who  by  means  of  the 
Panama  Canal  will  be  brought  into  close  commercial 
relations  with  the  Mississippi  Valley.  Every  city 
on  a  navigable  tributary  to  the  Mississippi  will  then 
be  a  seaport  in  direct  water  communication  with  the 
greater  part  of  the  world's  population,  and  in  touch 
with  the  centre  of  the  world's  commerce. 

For  some  thousands  of  years  the  Mediterranean 
was  the  "Midland  Sea,"  the  Great  Sea,  the  centre 
of  the  world's  commerce,  wealth,  and  power.  Then 
that  centre  passed  to  the  Atlantic;  and  with  the 
cutting  of  the  Isthmus  it  will  soon  pass  on  to  the 
Pacific,  there  to  remain  for  all  time. 

"  Geographical  differences,  which  need  not  detain  us, 
give  only  a  scant  supply  of  rain  to  the  Old  World  and 
an  abundance  to  most  of  the  New.  Accordingly 
the  greatest  river  systems  are  here,  and  the  only  great 
deserts  are  there.  We  must  not  be  surprised,  there- 
fore, that  the  geographers  find  as  much  arable  land 


236  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

in  America,  North  and  South,  as  in  Europe,  Asia,  and 
Africa  combined,  viz.,  about  10,000,000  square  miles."1 
The  Encyclopaedia  Britannica  says:2  "Paradoxical 
as  the  fact  may  appear,  we  are  satisfied  that  the  new 
continent,  though  less  than  half  the  size  of  the  old, 
contains  at  least  an  equal  quantity  of  useful  soil 
and  much  more  than  an  equal  amount  of  productive 
power."  If  this  statement  is  correct,  the  average  acre 
in  America  is  more  than  twice  as  productive  as  the 
average  acre  in  Europe,  Asia,  and  Africa.  It  con- 
tinues with  the  following  astonishing  statement,  which 
is  based  on  scientific  data:  "If  the  natural  resources 
of  the  American  continent  were  fully  developed,  it 
would  afford  sustenance  to  3,600,000,000  of  inhabit- 
ants." This  statement  will  seem  less  incredible  when  we 
consider  that  if  this  vast  number  were  all  placed  in  our 
one  State  of  Texas,  there  would  be  but  21  to  the  acre. 
If,  however,  incredulity  cuts  these  figures  in  two  in 
the  middle,  they  would  still  make  America  capable  of 
supporting  1,800,000,000,  which  is  200,000,000  more 
than  the  present  population  of  the  globe. 

These  estimates,  even  if  we  allow  wide  margins  for 
error,  make  it  morally  certain  that  the  United  States 
will  at  some  time,  not  remote,  be  the  home  of  several 
hundred  millions  —  probably  five  or  six  tunes  our 
present  population  at  least.  This  would  mean  the 
multiplication  of  our  existing  urban  population  by 
five  or  six,  even  if  there  were  not  a  most  significant 
drift  from  country  to  city. 

Impressive  as  are  the  above  facts,  they  only  prepare 
the  way  for  another  which  is  absolutely  decisive  of  the 
place  of  the  city  in  the  civilization  of  the  future. 

'My  "Expansion,"  p.  167. 

'Article  on  America,  Ninth  Edition,  Vol.  I,  p.  717. 


NEW  PROBLEM  OF  THE  CITY         237 

II.   THE  CRY  OF  "  BACK  TO  THE  LAND  " 

Under  the  conditions  of  the  new  civilization  urban 
population  must  of  necessity  grow  faster  than  rural 
population. 

The  United  States  Census  now  classifies  as  urban 
population  that  residing  in  cities  and  other  incorporated 
places  of  2,500  inhabitants  or  more;  all  else  of  course  is 
rural. 

For  one  hundred  and  twenty  years  the  urban  popu- 
lation of  the  United  States  has  been  growing  faster 
than  the  rural.  During  the  first  thirty  years  of  that 
period  it  grew  1.6  times  faster;  from  1900  to  1910  it 
grew  3.14  times  faster.  In  continental  United  States  as 
a  whole  the  rural  population  increased  only  11.1  per 
cent,  from  1900  to  1910,  while  the  urban  population 
increased  34.9  per  cent.  In  New  Hampshire,  Vermont, 
Ohio,  Indiana,  Illinois,  Iowa,  and  Missouri  the  rural 
population  actually  decreased.  In  only  two  States, 
Montana  and  Wyoming,  did  the  rural  population 
increase  more  rapidly  than  the  urban.  And  in  those 
states  where  the  rural  rate  of  increase  was  greatest 
the  urban  rate  was  more  than  twice  as  great  as  the 
rural. 

The  wonderful  growth  of  American  cities  during  the 
past  century  has  not  been  due,  as  many  have  supposed, 
to  temporary  or  exceptional  causes  like  the  develop- 
ment of  a  virgin  continent  and  the  stimulus  of  an  un- 
precedented immigration.  European  peoples  had  no 
virgin  resources  to  develop,  and  what  we  gained  by 
immigration  they  lost  by  emigration,  and  yet  European 
cities  have  grown  like  our  own.  Indeed,  in  many  Euro- 
pean countries  the  percentage  of  urban  population  is 
much  larger  than  in  the  United  States. 


238  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

But,  it  is  asked  why  must  the  disproportionate 
growth  of  the  city  continue  of  necessity?  Because 
that  disproportionate  growth  is  the  inevitable  effect 
of  the  new  industrial  civilization,  and  that  civili- 
zation has  come  to  stay.  For  the  growth  of  urban 
and  rural  populations  in  recent  times  Professor  John 
M.  Gillette  formulates  the  law  as  follows:  "The 
increase  of  rural  population  is  in  inverse,  and  that  of 
urban  population  is  in  direct  proportion  to  the  degree 
of  industrialization."1  This  law  will  be  found  to 
hold  substantially  between  our  different  states,  be- 
tween the  various  countries  of  Europe,  and  between 
Europe  and  Asia.  The  population  of  a  country  may 
be  very  dense  with  only  a  small  proportion  of  it  urban, 
as  in  the  case  of  Bengal  where  only  4.8  per  cent,  of 
the  people  are  city  dwellers;  and  again  a  country  may 
be  only  sparsely  settled  and  have  a  large  percentage 
of  urban  population,  as  in  the  case  of  Australia  where 
two  thirds  of  the  people  are  in  cities.  It  depends 
chiefly  on  the  extent  to  which  industry  has  been  or- 
ganized and  machinery  has  been  applied  to  it. 

We  must  observe  that  in  agriculture  machinery 
produces  results  very  different  from  those  produced 
by  it  in  manufactures.  When  the  manufacturer 
sets  up  machinery  which  doubles  the  effectiveness 
of  his  workmen  he  can  of  course  double  his  output  in 
the  same  factory  in  a  given  time.  But  when  the  farmer 
adopts  similarly  effective  machinery  he  does  not  pro- 
duce twice  the  crop  from  the  same  acreage  and  in  the 
same  time.  He  can  plant  and  cultivate  and  harvest 
with  one  half  of  the  labour  and  time  formerly  ex- 
pended, but  he  cannot  speed-up  the  seasons  so  as  to 

*" Publications  of  the  American  Sociological  Society,"  Vol.  V, 
p.  136. 


NEW  PROBLEM  OF  THE  CITY          239 

grow  two  crops  instead  of  one.  The  only  way  for  him 
to  get  the  full  benefit  of  the  machinery  is  to  increase  his 
acreage,  and  that  means  a  decrease  in  the  number  of 
men  employed. 

With  a  sufficiently  expanding  market  all  the  manu- 
facturers in  a  given  country  might  double  their  plants, 
but  all  the  farmers  could  not  double  the  size  of  their 
farms.  There  is  a  physical  limitation  in  the  way. 
One  hah*  of  the  farmers  could  double  the  size  of  their 
farms  only  as  the  other  half  quit  farming.  Thus 
machinery  necessarily  tends  to  reduce  the  percentage 
of  the  population  engaged  in  agriculture,  while  in 
manufactures,  by  greatly  reducing  the  cost  of  the 
product,  it  may  so  increase  consumption  as  to  create 
an  added  demand  for  labour. 

This  leads  us  to  another  exceedingly  important 
difference  between  agriculture  and  manufactures. 
The  amount  of  food  which  a  man  can  eat  has  a  natural 
and  necessary  limit,  while  his  demand  for  the  products 
of  the  mechanical  and  fine  arts  depends  on  his  purse 
and  his  taste  —  a  limit  which  is  artificial  and  change- 
able. Try  it.  Here  is  a  man  whose  annual  income 
increases  from  a  thousand  dollars  to  a  hundred  thou- 
sand. He  does  not  now  eat  a  hundred  times  as  much 
as  formerly.  He  does  not  eat  any  more,  though  he 
eats  more  expensive  food.  His  table  may  now  cost 
him  three  or  four  times  as  much  as  it  did,  but  not 
much  of  the  increased  expenditure  goes  to  the  farmer. 
He  may,  however,  spend  a  hundred  times  as  much  on 
houses  and  grounds,  on  automobiles  and  furniture, 
on  books  and  paintings,  and  statuary,  and  articles 
of  virtu.  His  wife  may  wear  a  million  dollars'  worth 
of  diamonds  at  one  time,  if  his  bank  account  is  good 
enough  and  her  taste  is  bad  enough.  The  only  limit 


240  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

to  his  miscellaneous  expenditures  is  his  wealth  and 
his  wants,  both  of  which  are  rapidly  growing. 

There  is,  therefore,  a  well  known  economic  law  that 
as  wealth  increases  the  proportion  expended  for  food 
grows  steadily  less  while  the  proportion  expended  for 
miscellaneous  objects  grows  steadily  greater. 

It  is  evident  that  the  product  of  our  farms  and  the 
output  of  our  mines  and  factories  must  be  limited  by 
the  demand.  When,  therefore,  the  world's  demand 
for  food  has  been  satisfied  those  who  gain  their  living 
by  supplying  the  food  market  can  increase  in  number 
only  as  fast  as  the  world's  population  increases, 
while  those  who  live  by  supplying  the  artificial  wants 
of  civilization  will  increase  as  fast  as  population 
increases  multiplied  by  the  increase  of  per  capita  wealth 
and  wants.  The  latter  class,  therefore,  which  is  mostly 
urban,  must  necessarily  increase  more  rapidly  than  the 
rural  population. 

This  shows  how  utterly  futile  is  the  attempt  to 
relieve  the  congestion  of  the  city  by  transferring  the 
"landless  man"  to  the  "manless  land."  The  fallacy, 
however,  which  is  contained  in  the  popular  cry, 
"Back  to  the  soil,"  is  so  tenacious  of  life,  and  has  gained 
an  acceptance  so  well  nigh  universal  that  we  must 
take  time  to  kill  it  again.1 

'Under  the  circumstances  I  make  no  apology  for  using  some  of  the 
material  which  appeared  in  "Expansion,"  pp.  91-98,  and  in  "The 
Challenge  of  the  City,"  pp.  21-35.  Considerable  material  is  intro- 
duced here  which  I  have  not  used  previously.  For  some  phases  of 
the  subject  not  taken  up  in  this  connection  see  the  above  references. 

It  is  singular  that  so  many  intelligent  and  able  men,  seeking  relief 
from  the  ills  of  the  crowded  city,  should  be  misled  by  this  quack 
remedy.  The  British  and  Danish  governments  have  furnished  some 
millions  of  dollars  in  furtherance  of  the  effort  to  distribute  popula- 
tion on  the  land.  A  single  philanthropist  gave  General  Booth 
$500,000  for  the  same  purpose.  Books  have  been  written,  and  num- 
berless articles  and  editorials  have  appeared  in  magazines  and  papers, 


NEW  PROBLEM  OF  THE  CITY         241 

The  country  life  movement,  which  must  not  be 
confounded  with  the  subject  of  our  discussion,  is 
exceedingly  important  and  altogether  admirable.  It 
aims  to  improve  the  social  and  economic  conditions 
of  the  rural  population,  which  is  urgently  desirable 
for  many  reasons. 

all  echoing  the  cry  "Back  to  the  land."  Many  organizations  have 
been  formed  to  actualize  the  idea.  We  read:  "The  Little  Land 
League  will  unite  and  stimulate  attempts  already  made  by  Indus- 
trial and  Farm  Training  Schools,  Demonstration  Garden  Farms,  Co- 
operative Farm  Instruction  Colonies,  Suburban  Homecroft- Villages, 
Garden  Cities  and  Rural  Settlements,  to  open  the  gateway  of  oppor- 
tunity through  which  a  steady  stream  of  humanity  may  pass  from 
the  congested  cities  back  to  the  country,  to  suburban,  comfortable 
living." 

Lest  such  an  array  on  one  side  of  the  question  be  deemed  conclu- 
sive against  a  single  humble  writer  I  may  be  permitted  to  quote  a  few 
scholars  whose  opinions  have  great  weight.  President  King  of 
Oberlin  College  says  ("The  Moral  and  Religious  Challenge  of  Our 
Times,"  pp.  26-28):  "The  inevitable  growth  of  the  cities,  too,  brings 
to  the  moral  and  religious  forces  what  Dr.  Josiah  Strong  has  justly 
called  'the  challenge  of  the  city.'  And  he  makes  it  perfectly  clear 
that  there  is  no  way  by  which  our  civilization  may  evade  this  chal- 
lenge. The  causes  of  the  movement  toward  the  city,  as  he  says,  'are 
permanent,  and  indicate  that  this  movement  will  be  permanent.' 
.  .  .  The  inevitable  trend  of  population,  therefore,  is  toward  the 
city,  and  none  of  the  various  devices  for  scattering  people  to  the 
country  can  prevent  the  continued  growth  of  great  cities;  though 
there  are  undoubted  elements  of  value  in  these  movements.  .  .  . 
As  Docter  Strong  says,  'the  sudden  expansion  of  the  city  marks  a 
profound  change  in  civilization,  the  results  of  which  will  grow  more 
and  more  obvious.' " 

Dean  L.  H.  Bailey  is  widely  known  as  an  author  and  as  the  head  of 
the  New  York  State  College  of  Agriculture  at  Cornell  University, 
also  as  Chairman  of  the  Commission  on  Country  Life  appointed  by 
President  Roosevelt.  He  is  not  only  a  scholar  and  a  scientist  who 
has  a  practical  knowledge  of  agriculture,  he  is  also  a  philosopher  who 
takes  a  comprehensive  view  of  the  relations  of  agriculture  to  civiliza- 
tion. No  one  has  thought  more  clearly  or  accurately  on  this  vital 
subject  than  he.  In  an  address  in  New  York  City,  January  21, 
1911,  he  said  that  the  back-to-the-farm  movement  was  "socially  and 
economically  unsound."  Says  Dr.  A.  F.  Weber,  "the  general  prop- 
osition remains  true  that  the  great  cities  (the  class  of  100,000+ 
population)  are  bound  to  absorb  an  ever-increasing  proportion  of  the 
country's  population."  Studies  in  History,  Economics  and  Public 
Law  (Edited  by  the  Faculty  of  Political  Science  of  Columbia  Uni- 
versity, Vol.  XI,  pp.  424,448). 


242  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

The  back-to-the-farm  movement,  on  the  other  hand, 
springs  from  many  motives  and  has  in  view  various 
objects,  chief  among  which  is  the  relief  of  the  city. 
As  Dean  Bailey  says:  "It  is  in  part  an  effort  of  the 
city  to  relieve  its  congestion,  in  part  a  desire  to  find 
labour  for  the  unemployed,  in  part  the  result  of  the 
doubtful  propaganda  to  decrease  the  cost  of  living  by 
sending  more  persons  to  the  land,  in  part  the  desire 
of  certain  persons  to  escape  the  city,  and  in  part 
the  effort  of  real-estate  dealers  to  sell  land."  He 
might  have  added  that  it  is  also  in  part  an  attempt  of 
railroad  officials  and  of  bankers  to  improve  their  busi- 
ness. 

This  whole  back-to-the-land  movement  is  based  on 
a  number  of  mistaken  assumptions,  most  of  which  are 
survivals  from  the  individualistic  age  whose  spirit 
is  still  dominant.  Some  of  these  assumptions  were 
once  true;  all  of  them  are  now  false. 

1.  "Back  to  the  land"  assumes,  perhaps  uncon- 
sciously, that  the  farmer  is  the  one  independent 
man  in  the  community. 

So  far  as  his  movements  are  concerned,  the  farmer 
still  enjoys  a  large  measure  of  personal  independence, 
but  economically  he  has  become,  through  the  organi- 
zation of  industry,  the  most  widely  dependent  man 
in  the  world.  In  the  age  of  homespun  his  family 
was  practically  sufficient  unto  itself.  Its  prosperity 
and  comfort  depended  on  the  intelligent  and  versatile 
industry  of  its  members  who  provided  directly  for  their 
own  wants.  Whether  they  can  now  have  a  thousand 
of  the  necessaries  and  comforts  of  life,  whether  they 
can  satisfy  the  mortgage,  perhaps,  and  keep  the  home, 
depends  not  simply  on  the  faithfulness  with  which 
they  toil,  but  on  the  prices  of  the  two  or  three  staples 


NEW  PROBLEM  OF  THE  CITY         243 

they  produce,  and  those  prices  depend  on  the  crops 
in  several  continents,  and  on  how  many  hundreds 
of  millions  of  people  want  them  and  are  able  to  buy 
them.  Manufacturers  by  means  of  patents  or  other- 
wise fix  their  own  prices,  but  farmers  have  their 
prices  fixed  for  them.  Their  income  depends  on 
many  millions  of  people  scattered  through  "many  lands, 
because  they  are  now  absolutely  bound  by  the  law 
of  supply  and  demand  touching  the  great  staples  of 
food  and  of  raw  materials  in  which  the  whole  civilized 
world  is  concerned. 

2.  "Back  to  the  land"  assumes  that  the  cultiva- 
tion of  the  soil  is  the  most  natural  and  normal  oc- 
cupation of  mankind,  and  one  which  must  remain  of 
supreme  importance  because  food  will  always  be  the 
one  great  necessity. 

It  is  time  to  recognize  the  fact  that  with  the  progress 
of  civilization  and  the  multiplication  of  intellectual, 
aesthetic,  and  spiritual  wants  food  necessarily  becomes 
a  relatively  less  important  object  of  effort  and  ex- 
penditure. It  is  the  one  great  necessity  of  the  savage, 
but  not  of  the  civilized  man.  A  good  many  of  us 
would  prefer  going  to  business  hungry  rather  than 
naked.  Organized  society  has  many  needs  which  are 
vital,  and  of  many  necessities  it  is  idle  to  speculate  as 
to  which  is  the  most  necessary. 

Nor  is  agriculture  any  more  "natural  and  normal" 
than  the  chase  or  the  herding  of  cattle  and  sheep, 
which  antedated  it  by  many  tens  of  thousands  of  years. 
Agriculture,  which  was  inconsistent  with  the  roving 
habits  of  uncivilized  man,  came  late  in  the  history  of 
the  race;  and  it  is  certainly  conceivable  that  it  may 
be  superseded  by  chemical  science.  Professor  Drum- 
mond  speaks  of  "manufacturing  nutrition"  as  more 


244  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

than  probable,  and  adds:  "It  is  not  the  visionaries 
who  have  dared  to  prophesy  here.  In  a  hundred  labo- 
ratories the  problem  is  being  practically  worked  out, 
and,  as  one  of  the  highest  authorities  (Prof.  Remsen) 
assures  us,  'The  time  is  not  far  distant  when  the 
artificial  preparation  of  articles  of  food  will  be  accom- 
plished.' 5>1  If  man's  food  is  ever  produced  without 
passing  through  the  vital  laboratory  of  nature,  agri- 
culture will  shrink  to  the  production  of  the  raw  mate- 
rials of  manufactures;  unless,  indeed,  science  also  spins 
our  wool  and  cotton  from  mineral  substances.  In  any 
event,  as  agriculture  grows  either  absolutely  or  rela- 
tively less  important,  the  city  will  necessarily  become 
greater  and  more  dominant. 

3.  "Back  to  the  land"  assumes  that  agriculture  is 
the  natural  asylum  of  those  who  have  failed  in  the 
city,  and  that  the  solution  of  the  problem  of  the 
unemployed  must  come  from  the  soil. 

There  are  multitudes  in  the  world  who  are  inad- 
equately clothed,  and  clothing  is  as  necessary  to  a 
civilized  man  as  food;  why  not  set  the  poor  of  the 
city  and  the  unemployed  generally  to  weaving  and 
tailoring?  You  tell  me  that  there  are  three  insuper- 
able obstacles :  it  would  require  both  capital  and  special 
skill,  which  the  unemployed  do  not  possess,  and  it 
would  overdo  and  derange  the  industry.  Exactly;  and 
these  three  objections  are  equally  conclusive  against 
seeking  a  solution  of  the  problem  in  agriculture. 

Capital  has  become  as  indispensable  in  agriculture 
as  in  mercantile  business  or  manufactures.  "Ten 
dollars  for  every  acre,"  we  are  told,  "must  be  invested 
in  artificial  fertilizers,  manures,  and  crops  ploughed 
under  to  bring  back  to  fertility  the  worn  land;  and  from 

'"The  Ascent  of  Man,"  p.  213. 


NEW  PROBLEM  OF  THE  CITY         245 

$12  to  $15  per  acre  must  be  invested  in  machinery." 
This  means  from  $2,300  to  $2,500  for  every  100  acres. 
Any  land  which  can  be  bought  or  leased  for  a  trifle 
is  so  poor  that  it  would  require  extra  fertilizing,  or 
so  far  from  the  railway  that  marketing  crops  would 
be  expensive.  In  addition  to  capital  for  land,  fertiliz- 
ers, machinery,  and  stock,  there  are  the  living  expenses 
which  must  be  provided  for  while  the  crops  are  grow- 
ing. It  may  be  true  that  philanthropic  people  stand 
ready  to  help,  but  philanthropy  is  the  solution  of 
no  economic  problem.  If  it  were  seriously  attempted 
to  provide  for  the  unemployed  in  the  way  proposed, 
philanthropy  would  be  intolerably  and  increasingly 
burdened,  for  land  is  rapidly  appreciating  in  value, 
and  will  continue  to  rise  as  population  grows  more 
dense.  From  1900  to  1910  the  average  value  per 
acre  of  all  the  farms  in  the  United  States,  exclusive 
of  buildings,  increased  108  per  cent. 

If  there  were  ever  a  trace  of  truth  in  the  old  saying 
that  "any  fool  can  farm,"  it  was  in  the  individualistic 
age  when  each  farmer  produced  practically  all  he  con- 
sumed, and  he,  his  family  and  his  stock  consumed 
practically  all  he  produced.  Now  when  every  farmer 
must  produce  for  the  market  he  must  compete  with 
men  who  have  scientific  knowledge  and  skill.  If 
the  "fool"  is  unable  to  produce  crops  for  the  market 
price,  which  is  highly  probable,  he  can  no  more  con- 
tinue farming  than  he  could  continue  running  a 
department  store,  selling  goods  at  less  than  cost. 

Overproduction  is  as  possible  and  as  mischievous  in 
agriculture  as  anywhere  else,  and  I  will  show  presently 
the  historic  results  of  a  long  period  of  overproduction. 

But  let  us  suppose  that  those  who  have  failed  in  the 
city  and  the  unemployed  generally  are  transferred  to 


246  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

the  land,  and  that  special  training,  wise  superintend- 
ence and  generous  loans  enable  these  assisted  farmers 
and  gardeners  to  gain  the  market,  for  which  they 
have  to  compete  with  others  already  on  the  soil. 
In  every  occupation  there  are  those  who  because  of 
various  handicaps  barely  succeed,  but  who  by  dint 
of  hard  struggle  manage  to  hold  on  and  retain  their 
self-respect.  There  are  many  such  who  make  only  a 
sorry  success  on  the  land,  and  these  are  the  ones  who 
are  forced  out  of  the  market  by  the  assisted  farmers 
and  gardeners  whom  a  mistaken  philanthropy  has 
placed  on  the  land  and  to  whom  it  has  given  a  fictitious 
success.  Have  we  no  sympathy  for  these  deserving 
families  thus  driven  to  failure  and  to  the  city  to  lay 
their  burden  on  the  blind  philanthropy  which  moves 
in  a  circle  and  arrives  nowhere?  If  charity  must 
destroy  or  impair  manhood,  it  is  cruel  kindness  to 
supply  an  increasing  stream  of  fresh  victims.  Ever 
since  farming  as  a  part  of  organized  industry  became 
competitive  there  has  been  a  steady  stream  of  such 
families  flowing  from  country  to  city,  and  the  more 
the  landward  movement  grows  the  more  will  this 
cityward  stream  be  swollen  —  that  is,  the  more 
this  back-to-land  cry  succeeds,  the  worse  it  will  fail. 

There  is  a  large  percentage  of  failures  in  all  oc- 
cupations, whether  professional,  mercantile,  industrial, 
or  agricultural.  The  list  of  abandoned  jobs  of  all 
sorts  is  immeasurably  longer  than  the  list  of  "abandoned 
farms."  There  is  no  propriety  in  trying  to  gather 
the  failures  of  all  occupations  into  agriculture.  It 
is  highly  probable  that  failure  has  been  due  to  some 
disability,  mental,  moral,  or  physical,  which  disability 
would  be  as  operative  in  the  country  as  in  the  city. 
Wonderful  progress  is  being  made  in  the  knowledge 


NEW  PROBLEM  OF  THE  CITY         247 

of  agriculture,  and  the  more  scientific  agriculture 
becomes,  the  more  hopeless  will  be  the  fanning  ven- 
ture of  the  untrained  man.  Mr.  W.  M.  Hays,  As- 
sistant Secretary  of  the  Department  of  Agriculture, 
says :  "  The  expert  in  farm  management  has  no  trouble 
in  demonstrating  that  the  proper  and  effective  man- 
agement of  the  160-acre  farm  gives  opportunity  for 
the  exercise  of  a  wider  knowledge  of  details  and  a 
broader  philosophy  than  conducting  a  bank."1  We 
should  hardly  expect  to  solve  the  problem  of  the 
unemployed  by  making  bank  officials  of  all  the  men 
who  have  failed  in  the  various  occupations. 

The  problem  of  the  unemployed  is  a  problem  of  the 
boy  rather  than  of  the  man.  We  must  begin  with 
the  child.  The  problem  can  be  solved  not  by  hunting 
a  job  for  the  man,  but  by  making  a  man  whom  the 
job  will  hunt.  It  is  well  to  do  our  utmost  for  the 
unfortunates;  it  is  better  to  stop  raising  unfortunates. 
The  cheap  man  will  find  only  a  cheap  job  or  none 
at  all.  Touching  industrial  education,  Mr.  Edward 
A.  Rumely  says:  "We  begin  by  cutting  the  maple 
tree  into  a  cord  of  wood,  worth  from  $3  to  $7,  and 
each  tree  furnishes  material  for  one  day's  work. 
This  same  tree,  if  sawed  into  lumber,  is  worth  $20, 
and  would  furnish  employment  for  three  or  four  days 
for  one  man.  If  quarter-sawed,  and  more  carefully 
treated,  it  might  be  worth  $40,  and  would  furnish 
employment  for  more  skilled  and  better  paid  workers 
and  for  a  period  of  from  ten  to  twelve  days.  And 
this  same  lumber,  in  a  furniture  factory,  would  pro- 
duce furniture  worth  from  $100  to  $500,  and  would 
furnish  employment  directly  and  indirectly  equal  to 
from  six  months  to  one  year's  work  for  one  man.  And, 

lThe  Outlook,  August  5,  1905,  p.  865. 


248  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

finally,  if  he  had  the  highest  artistic  ability  and  the 
skill  of  an  Italian  wood  carver,  he  might  produce  ob- 
jects with  an  art  value  ranging  into  many  thousands 
of  dollars,  upon  the  return  from  which  he  could  live 
his  whole  life.  The  whole  range  of  values  in  this 
series,  from  $7  worth  of  cord  wood  to  the  $7,000  art- 
object,  depends  upon  the  degree  of  refinement  ex- 
tended to  identically  the  same  raw  material  through 
quantity  and  quality  of  labour  employed  upon  it."1 

Of  course  there  are  defectives  whom  training  can 
never  make  anything  else,  and  there  are  men  and 
women  who  have  been  broken  on  the  wheel  of  fortune, 
for  whom  society  should  wisely  and  tenderly  care. 
The  country  appears  to  be  peculiarly  suited  to  the 
special  needs  of  such;  and  it  seems  fitting  that  mother 
earth  should  make  some  amends  by  holding  them  in 
her  lap  a  while  before  they  are  finally  hidden  away  in 
her  bosom.  I  make  no  criticism  of  such  beneficent 
work.  My  contention  is  that  reason  and  experience 
alike  forbid  all  hope  of  finding  in  this  new  crusade 
any  solution  of  the  city's  problem  of  poverty  or  of 
congestion. 

New  York's  Committee  on  the  Congestion  of  the 
City  wrote  to  the  "House  of  Governors":  "The 
most  sympathetic  observer  of  the  work  of  private 
charities  in  distributing  population  and  reviving 
general  farming,  and  the  most  unbiased  student  of 
the  work  in  these  directions  of  private  companies 
realizes  that  they  have  signally  failed  to  effect  any 
material  increase  proportionately  of  the  number 
actively  engaged  in  agriculture,  gardening,  dairying, 

'From  an  address  before  the  Second  Annual  Conference  of  the 
Bankers'  Committee  on  Agricultural  Development  and  Education, 
Minneapolis  and  St.  Paul,  August  7  and  8,  1912. 


NEW  PROBLEM  OF  THE  CITY         249 

etc.  Large  resources  are  necessary  for  this  purpose, 
and  sometimes  expropriation  of  land.  The  failure 
of  these  private  organizations  is  amply  demonstrated 
by  the  revelations  of  the  census  of  the  flight  from 
the  land  to  the  city."  The  committee's  appeal  to  the 
Federal  and  State  governments  to  undertake  the  distri- 
bution of  the  people  on  the  land  is  a  striking  illustration 
of  another  common  misapprehension. 

4.  It  is  believed  that  if  the  experiment  could 
only  be  tried  on  a  scale  sufficiently  great,  it  would 
certainly  relieve  the  congestion  of  the  city. 

Suppose  our  Government  makes  an  experiment  on 
a  scale  which  all  will  agree  is  not  only  ample  but 
extravagant.  We  will  suppose  that  Great  Britain 
and  Ireland  are  depopulated,  loosed  from  their  anchor- 
age, towed  across  the  Atlantic,  joined  to  our  eastern 
coast,  and  opened  to  settlement.  Then  deal  in  like 
fashion  with  the  German  Empire,  France,  Italy, 
Denmark,  Holland,  the  Netherlands,  Belgium,  and 
Switzerland.  We  will  suppose  that  our  Government 
proposes  to  try  this  experiment  with  a  thoroughness 
that  will  be  decisive  for  all  time.  Even  the  most 
determined  champions  of  the  back-to-the-farm  policy 
would  not  advocate  force  in  its  execution.  The 
Government  could  hardly  be  expected  to  arrest  city 
dwellers,  and  to  carry  them  in  chains  to  the  waiting 
land.  The  very  most  that  could  be  reasonably  asked 
would  be  that  the  Government,  having  purchased  these 
empires  and  kingdoms,  should  throw  them  open  to 
free  settlement,  making  a  present  of  a  farm  to  every 
man  who  was  willing  to  take  it  and  work  it. 

Let  us  suppose  further  that  millions,  driven  by 
land-hunger,  take  possession  of  this  vast  region. 
If,  after  the  completion  of  this  experiment  on  a  scale 


250  THE  NEW  WORLD -LIFE 

so  enormous,  the  United  States  census  showed  that 
during  the  entire  period  of  settlement  our  urban 
population  had  increased  more  rapidly  than  the  rural, 
and  that  notwithstanding  this  tremendous  artificial 
stimulus  given  to  agriculture  the  percentage  of  the 
people  engaged  in  it  had  steadily  decreased,  would  you 
not  confess  that  your  back-to-the-farm  movement  was 
hopeless  and  its  theory  fallacious? 

An  experiment  on  the  above  scale  has  actually  been 
tried,  and  with  precisely  the  above  results.  From 
1850  to  1900  our  Government  gave  away  several 
million  farms  —  463,000,000  acres  —  an  area  some- 
what greater  than  that  indicated  in  our  supposition. 
For  sixty  years  previous  the  urban  population  had 
been  growing  faster  than  the  rural,  and,  notwith- 
standing the  unparalleled  fact  that  the  people  flocked 
to  the  land  in  such  numbers  as  to  take  up  an  average 
of  25,000  acres  every  day  for  fifty  years,  the  urban  popu- 
lation continued  to  grow  faster  than  the  rural.  From 
1850  to  1880  the  rate  of  increase  of  the  city  population 
was  more  than  twice  as  great  as  that  of  the  rural,  and 
from  1880  to  1900  it  was  more  than  three  times  as 
great.  Furthermore,  notwithstanding  the  enormous 
artificial  impetus  given  to  agriculture  —  greater  than 
can  ever  be  given  by  any  back-to-the-land  agitation 
—  the  proportion  of  the  whole  population  engaged 
in  agriculture  fell  from  21  per  cent,  in  1850  to  13  per 
cent,  in  1900,  while  the  proportion  of  those  engaged 
in  mechanical  pursuits  rose  from  4  per  cent,  in  1850 
to  9  per  cent,  in  1900  —  more  than  double. 

The  distribution  of  several  million  people  upon  the 
land  not  only  did  not  stop  the  growth  of  the  cities; 
it  stimulated  that  growth,  and  created  other  cities, 
many  and  great.  If  the  Mississippi  Valley  had  never 


NEW  PROBLEM  OF  THE  CITY          251 

been  settled  by  farmers,  there  would  never  have  been 
a  Chicago  or  St.  Louis,  a  Minneapolis  or  St.  Paul, 
or  a  hundred  other  thriving  cities  which  are  growing, 
and  will  continue  to  grow,  faster  than  the  rural  popu- 
lation. Agriculture,  which  is  now  a  part  of  the  world's 
organized  industry,  demands  and  creates  cities  as 
markets,  and  as  necessary  centres  of  manufacture  and 
distribution. 

Let  us  look  a  little  more  closely  at  the  results  of 
this  experiment  in  economics  and  sociology,  tried  by 
our  Government  on  such  a  magnificent  scale  that 
it  can  never  again  be  repeated  —  and  does  not  need 
to  be. 

Many  who  are  now  raising  the  cry,  "Back  to  soil!" 
have  forgotten  or  are  not  old  enough  to  remember 
the  long  and  terrible  depression  in  agriculture  which 
was  the  natural  and  inevitable  result  of  overproduc- 
tion during  the  last  hah*  of  the  nineteenth  century. 
Under  the  Homestead  Act  of  1866,  the  United  States 
during  the  thirty  years  following  gave  away  2,000,000 
farms;  and  under  the  Timber-Culture  Act  over 
550,000  more  farms  were  given  away  during  the  same 
period.  As  was  remarked  by  the  Secretary  of  the 
Department  of  Agriculture,  in  his  Report  for  1896, 
"This  giving  of  something  for  nothing  has  resulted 
in  an  abnormally  rapid  increase  of  the  acreage  under 
tillage  in  the  United  States  during  the  last  thirty 
years."  Of  course  abnormally  large  production  re- 
sulted in  abnormally  low  prices,  and  in  some  parts 
of  the  West  corn  was  burned  for  fuel  because  it  was 
cheaper  than  wood  or  coal.  The  farmer's  complaint 
of  low  prices  for  his  produce  was  perennial,  and  in 
many  instances  the  mortgage  was  the  most  flourishing 
thing  on  the  farm.  The  agricultural  depression  still 


252  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

prevailing  in  the  early  nineties  both  in  the  United 
States  and  Europe  was  treated  in  a  report  of  our 
Department  of  Agriculture  by  the  statistician,  J.  R. 
Dodge,  and  thus  summarized  hi  the  New  York  Times: 
"The  prevalence  of  low  prices  is  noted,  and  a  feeling 
of  discouragement  hi  rural  circles  throughout  the 
world  is  indicated.  It  is  and  has  been  especially 
severe  hi  Great  Britain,  and  is  the  subject  of  complaint, 
discussion,  and  official  investigation  hi  Germany, 
France,  Italy,  and  other  countries.  It  is  present  in 
monarchies  and  republics,  under  diverse  currencies 
and  economic  systems.  But  is  less  severe  here  than 
in  other  countries.  Though  prices  of  implements, 
utensils,  and  fabrics  are  also  low,  the  farmer's  interest 
account  is  unreduced  and  his  mortgage  harder  to 
lift. 

"The  main  cause  of  low  prices  is  referred  to  the 
inexorable  law  of  supply  and  demand.  Corn  and 
wheat  and  other  staples  are  cheap  because  of  over- 
production. Immigration  has  increased  the  popula- 
tion 5,000,000  in  ten  years.  Intercontinental  areas 
have  been  carved  into  farms,  free  to  natives  and 
foreigners,  opening  millions  of  acres  to  cultivation. 
Railroad  extension  has  stimulated  production  and 
overwhelmed  the  East  with  Western  products.  Spec- 
ulation first  and  utilization  afterward  have  produced 
results  that  have  astonished  the  world  with  a  plethora 
of  bread  and  meat.  The  Old  World  has  joined  with 
the  New  to  crowd  the  mountain  valleys,  slopes,  and 
far-stretching  plains  of  a  continent  with  beeves  in  the 
haunts  of  the  once  countless  herds  of  the  buffalo. 

"Extended  comparisons  show  how,  in  the  progress 
of  forty  years,  production  had  outrun  population  in 
its  wildest  strides.  It  is  shown  that  wheat-growing 


NEW  PROBLEM  OF  THE  CITY         253 

has  become  a  philanthropic  mission  to  make  cheap 
bread  consistent  with  low  wages  in  Great  Britain; 
that  the  Northwestern  missionaries  continue  sowing 
the  seed  and  floating  their  bread  across  the  waters, 
mourning  for  the  profits  that  do  not  return  after  many 
days.  .  .  .  Depression  more  intense  will  result, 
it  is  predicted,  if  farmers  continue  ...  to  walk 
in  the  furrows  their  fathers  turned,  and  seek  to  live 
and  die  hi  the  same  overdone  and  profitless  routine." 

Big-hearted  people  who  are  hurt  by  the  hunger  of 
the  poor  would  like  to  multiply  the  tillers  of  the  soil 
until  the  world's  stomach  is  full.  There  are  those 
who  believe  that  so  long  as  many  are  hungry  and 
some  are  starving  there  can  be  no  such  thing  as  over- 
production of  food.  But  those  in  Europe  and  America 
who  starve  do  so  not  because  there  is  no  food  to  buy, 
but  because  they  have  nothing  to  buy  with,  and  if 
production  were  doubled  they  would  still  be  desti- 
tute. Then-  great  problem  is  one  of  distribution  rather 
than  production.  Indeed,  overproduction,  when  great 
enough,  aggravates  the  situation,  which  was  illustrated 
many  times  during  the  period  of  which  I  am  writing. 
For  instance,  in  1888  American  farmers  cultivated 
25,000,000  acres  more  than  in  1880,  and  their  total 
cereal  product  was  491,000,000  bushels  greater; 
but  the  market  being  overdone,  they  received  $41,- 
000,000  less  for  their  great  crops  than  for  the  smaller 
crops  of  1880.  That  is,  they  had  $41,000,000  less 
to  spend  for  farm  machinery  and  for  the  comforts 
of  life  than  they  had  had  eight  years  before.  This 
would  naturally  derange  the  prices  of  manufactured 
articles,  and  throw  workmen  out  of  employment,  so 
that  people  no  doubt  starved  in  Chicago,  New  York, 
and  London  just  as  they  do  now  when  food  is  high. 


254  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

A  man  without  a  job  is  worse  off  when  food  is  cheap 
than  the  man  with  good  wages  when  food  is  dear. 

John  WT.  Bookwalter  says:1  "Of  the  staple  cereals, 
oats,  wheat,  and  Indian  corn,  there  were  produced 
in  that  territory  alone  (the  plains  of  the  West)  over 
one  billion  tons  in  the  twenty  years  between  1870 
and  1890  —  an  amount  far  greater  than  had  hitherto 
been  produced  in  the  whole  prior  history  of  the  nation." 
And  yet,  notwithstanding  this  enormous  development 
of  agriculture,  and,  indeed,  largely  because  of  it,  the 
urban  population  grew  more  rapidly  than  the  rural. 
Abnormal  food  production  on  the  free  and  virgin 
soil  of  the  West  threw  many  farms  out  of  cultivation 
in  the  East,  and  stimulated  the  tide  toward  the  city. 
A  comparative  study  of  the  census  of  1880  and  that 
of  1890  shows  that  39  per  cent,  of  all  the  townships 
in  the  United  States  in  1880  lost  population  during 
the  ten  years  following.  Thus  in  New  England  62 
per  cent,  were  more  or  less  depleted;  in  New  York, 
69.5  per  cent.;  in  Ohio,  58  per  cent.;  in  Illinois,  54  per 
cent.  That  is,  hi  the  latter  State  792  townships 
lost  population,  while  Chicago  in  ten  years  leaped 
from  500,000  inhabitants  to  more  than  1,000,000  and 
the  urban  population  of  the  whole  country  increased 
61  per  cent. 

The  same  cause  operated  still  more  powerfully  in 
Europe  where  with  higher  land  values  it  cost  more 
to  produce  food  than  in  the  United  States.  Great 
Britain  in  half  a  century  doubled  her  wealth  by  means 
of  manufactures  and  foreign  investments,  but  mean- 
while her  land  values  declined  $690,000,000,2  and  from 
1851  to  1881  the  number  employed  in  agriculture 

'"Rural  vs.  Urban,"  p.  135. 

'David  A.  Wells,  "Recent  Economic  Changes,"  p.  423. 


NEW  PROBLEM  OF  THE  CITY          255 

shrunk  1,100,000.  Meanwhile  cities  in  Great  Britain 
and  on  the  continent  were  growing  rapidly.  No 
doubt  many  thought  that  the  destitute  of  the  city 
could  get  at  least  a  living,  if  they  would  only  turn 
back  to  the  land,  but  it  was  found  hi  various  European 
countries  that  food  products  did  not  bring  enough  to 
pay  for  their  production  —  a  temporary  justification  of 
Emerson's  remark  after  the  failure  of  the  Brook  Farm 
experiment  that  "though  no  land  is  bad,  land  is  worse." 
Thus  in  the  department  of  Aisne,  one  of  the  richest  in 
France,  a  tenth  of  the  land  was  abandoned;  and  from 
1851  to  1881  the  agricultural  population  of  France  de- 
creased 2,310,000.  In  Russia  80,000  landowners,  find- 
ing the  cost  of  ownership  greater  than  the  proceeds 
of  cultivation,  surrendered  their  land  and  tens  of 
thousands  of  them  joined  the  ranks  of  the  great  army 
of  beggars.  Germany,  Austria,  Spam,  Portugal,  and 
Belgium  afforded  no  exception  to  the  general  rule. 

This  widespread  disturbance  was  due  to  two  causes 
—  the  application  of  machinery  to  agriculture,  which 
always  and  everywhere  reduces  the  number  of  men 
necessary  to  produce  the  requisite  food  supply,  and 
the  importation  of  cheap  food  from  America,  made 
inevitable  by  the  vast  expansion  of  agriculture  in 
the  West.  Thus  multitudes  of  European  peasants, 
driven  from  the  soil,  flocked  to  the  cities,  and  other 
multitudes  migrated  to  America,  where  millions 
swelled  the  population  of  the  cities  and  other  millions 
settled  on  the  soil,  which  stimulated  the  tide  of 
Americans,  moving  from  country  to  city. 

The  opening  of  an  empire  of  virgin  soil  to  free  settle- 
ment was  as  really  a  great  economic  and  sociological 
experiment  as  if  it  had  been  so  intended  by  our  Gov- 
ernment; and  if  the  back-to-the-land  theory  had  the 


256  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

slightest  value  as  a  solvent  of  the  problems  of  city 
congestion  and  city  poverty,  it  should  have  relieved 
both  American  and  European  cities  in  the  course  of 
the  half  century  during  which  it  was  tried  on  such  a 
magnificent  scale.  On  the  contrary,  it  greatly  stimu- 
lated the  growth,  intensified  the  congestion,  and  aggra- 
vated the  poverty  of  the  city  in  both  continents. 

5.  Nor  is  the  cityward  movement  due  to  the 
stupidity  and  perversity  of  human  nature  which  lead 
men  to  exchange  the  better  for  the  worse.  The 
preachers  of  this  gospel  of  social  salvation  by  land 
assume  that  if  only  a  sufficient  number  of  city  people 
could  be  induced  to  prefer  farming,  they  would  migrate 
to  the  country;  and  if  rural  life  could  be  made  more 
attractive  to  the  young  people,  they  would  stay  on 
the  farm. 

Do  some  hundreds  of  thousands  of  men  in  this 
country  work  underground  because  they  have  con- 
ceived an  eccentric  dislike  to  sunlight  and  fresh  air? 
And  does  their  number  increase  or  decrease  as  a 
larger  or  smaller  proportion  of  the  population  share  this 
idiosyncrasy?  We  spend  our  breath  in  vain  urging 
that  God  evidently  intended  men  to  live  above  the 
surface  of  the  earth  rather  than  below  it,  and  that 
this  natural  and  ancient  mode  of  life  is  pleasanter, 
more  healthful  and  less  dangerous  than  the  arti- 
ficial custom  of  living  underground.  Even  though 
we  quite  convince  ourselves  and  the  miners,  too,  we 
shall  not  diminish  their  numbers  unless  our  eloquence 
reduces  the  economic  demand  for  coal  and  iron. 

To  undertake  certain  kinds  of  work  is  practically 
to  accept  a  sentence  of  death  to  be  executed  by  oc- 
cupational disease  in  ten  years.  Does  the  number 
of  men  enaged  in  such  trades  indicate  how  many 


NEW  PROBLEM  OF  THE  CITY         257 

among  us  are  tired  of  life  and  prefer  slow  suicide 
to  swift?  Or  if  these  trades  were  made  only  half  as 
deadly,  would  they  attract  twice  the  number  of  work- 
men? 

In  organized  industry  the  agreeableness,  the  health- 
fulness,  and  the  safety  of  an  occupation  do  not  deter- 
mine the  number  engaged  in  it.  Numbers  are  regulated 
by  economic  demand. 

Pleasant  or  unpleasant  conditions  of  work  deter- 
mine the  class  of  people,  but  not  the  number  of  people, 
who  will  engage  in  it. 

By  all  means  let  us  improve  the  conditions  of 
country  life  as  much  as  possible  for  the  same  reasons 
that  it  is  desirable  to  improve  the  conditions  of  life 
everywhere,  but  not  with  the  expectation  that  it 
will  affect  in  any  measure  the  relative  numbers  in 
country  and  city.  Just  as  many  will  live  on  the  land 
(whether  it  is  more  or  less  pleasant)  as  find  it  econom- 
ically profitable  to  do  so;  and  only  so  many  will  find 
it  economically  profitable  as  are  necessary  to  supply 
the  demand  for  farm  products. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  increasing  advantages  of 
the  large  city  will  increasingly  attract  the  semi- 
urban  element,  whose  industries  generally  can  be 
carried  on  as  successfully  in  the  city  as  in  the  village. 
Furthermore,  the  greater  profits  of  production  on  a 
large  scale  are  likely  to  deplete  the  small  town  and 
the  semi-urban  population. 

6.  Once  more,  it  is  assumed  by  the  advocates  of 
this  theory  that  by  making  agriculture  sufficiently 
scientific  and,  therefore,  remunerative  the  tide  from 
country  to  city  could  be  arrested,  if  not  actually 
reversed. 

The  value  of  scientific  methods  in  agriculture  is 


258  THE  NEW  WORLD -LIFE 

that  they  make  a  given  investment  of  effort,  time  and 
money  produce  a  larger  dividend  in  crops.  This 
of  course  increases  profits,  but  it  decreases  the  number 
of  men  who  share  the  profits.  Increasing  knowledge 
of  plant  life  and  of  soils,  and  all  labour-saving  ap- 
pliances which  make  work  on  the  farm  more  produc- 
tive inevitably  releases  a  certain  amount  of  labour  for 
other  occupations.  A  special  report  in  the  census 
of  1880  says:  "It  is,  in  fact,  estimated  by  careful 
men,  thoroughly  conversant  with  the  changes  that 
have  taken  place,  that  in  the  improvement  made  in 
agricultural  tools,  the  average  farmer  can,  with  suffi- 
cient horsepower,  do  with  three  men  the  work  of 
fifteen  men  forty  years  ago,  and  do  it  better."1  And 
of  course  the  continued  advance  in  the  application  of 
machinery  to  farming  has  been  very  great  since  1880. 
For  instance,  after  many  failures,  a  successful  cotton 
picking  machine  has  now  appeared  which  does  the 
work  of  sixty  pickers.  The  influence  of  machinery 
on  the  productiveness  of  farm  labour  is  well  illustrated 
by  the  relative  amount  of  human  labour  required  to 
produce  a  bushel  of  wheat  in  1830  and  in  1894.  In 
the  former  year  it  required  three  hours  and  three 
minutes  of  work;  in  the  latter  it  required  ten  minutes. 
That  is,  in  raising  wheat,  one  man  hi  1894  could  do 
the  work  which  required  eighteen  two  generations 
earlier.2 

It  becomes  evident,  therefore,  that  the  greater  the 
progress  in  agricultural  knowledge  and  machinery 
the  smaller  will  be  the  number  of  men  required  to 
raise  a  given  quantity  of  farm  products;  and  as  the 

'Tenth  Census,  Vol.  II,  p.  76. 

SU.  S.  Department  of  Agriculture,  Bureau  of  Statistics  and  Bulletin 
94,  p.  61. 


NEW  PROBLEM  OF  THE  CITY          259 

amount  of  food  which  the  world  can  consume  is 
limited,  the  effect  of  scientific  agriculture,  as  soon  as 
that  limit  is  reached,  will  be  to  reduce  the  number 
of  those  engaged  in  producing  the  world's  foodstuffs. 
And  that  limit,  let  me  add,  would  be  quickly  reached 
provided  the  destitute  had  means  with  which  to  buy 
food.  If  we  suppose  that  10  per  cent,  of  the  civilized 
world  are  only  hah*  fed,  it  would  require  an  increase 
of  only  5  per  cent,  of  the  food  supply  to  meet  the 
deficiency.  Beyond  that  no  more  food  would  be 
eaten,  if  produced.  And  Mr.  Hays  in  the  article 
already  quoted,  says  that  the  work  of  plant  breeding 
will  add  ten  per  cent,  annually  to  our  crop  products, 
and  possibly  25  per  cent. 

Agricultural  science  has  as  yet  made  only  a  begin- 
ning. Indeed,  Dean  Bailey  says  it  has  not  yet  become 
a  science.  We  can  fix  no  limit  to  man's  improvement 
of  the  soil  or  of  plant  life. 1  Because  of  the  large  num- 
ber of  scientific  workers  employed,  the  Department  of 
Agriculture  at  Washington  has  been  called  the  greatest 
research  university  in  the  world.  The  department  has 
13,858  employees,  all  told,  and  expends  an  annual  appro- 
priation of  nearly  $25,000,000.  There  are  also  many 
agricultural  experiment  stations  scattered  through  the 
United  States  which  are  doing  original  and  valuable 
work.  Furthermore,  there  has  been  a  great  revival  in 
the  study  of  agriculture  in  Europe  during  the  past 
generation,  which  was  inspired  by  American  compe- 
tition. It  may  well  be  questioned,  therefore,  whether 
progress  in  scientific  agriculture  will  not  be  great 

l"  It  is  possible,  with  the  most  prolific  varieties  and  the  utmost  care 
to  produce  as  high  as  one  thousand  five  hundred  grains  of  wheat  from 
a  single  grain.  .  .  .  By  this  method  from  sixty-two  to  ninety 
bushels  of  wheat  to  the  acre  have  actually  been  obtained."  James 
J.  Hill's  "Highways  of  Progress,"  p.  35. 


260  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

enough  for  years  to  come  to  provide  for  all  increase 
of  the  world's  population,  which  at  present  is  not  far 
from  1  per  cent,  per  annum.  And  so  long  as  that  is 
the  case  agricultural  population  will  remain  stationary 
and  all  increase  of  population  will  be  urban. 

I  do  not  forget  that  a  large  proportion  of  farm 
products  are  raw  materials  for  manufactures.  But 
if  scientific  cultivation  increase  their  output  10  per 
cent,  per  annum,  it  will  be  more  than  adequate. 
Moreover,  any  increase  of  rural  population  in  order 
to  supply  raw  materials  for  manufactures  implies  a 
much  greater  increase  of  urban  population,  because 
it  takes  many  persons  to  consume,  and  to  prepare  for 
consumption,  the  wool  or  cotton  which  one  farmer 
produces;  and  the  better  farmer  he  is  the  larger  will 
be  the  number  for  whom  he  will  provide  work  and 
food  in  the  city.  At  present,  one  person  engaged  in 
agriculture  in  the  United  States  furnishes  farm  prod- 
ucts for  eight  persons,  besides  exports  whose  total  is 
$1, 000,000,000 ;l  which  means  that  one  farm  worker 
provides  food  and  raw  materials  for  about  ten.  When, 
therefore,  our  present  productiveness  fairly  represents 
that  of  the  whole  world,  only  one  tenth  of  the  world's 
population  can  engage  in  agriculture;  and  that  propor- 
tion will  be  reduced  as  rapidly  as  science  and  invention 
increase  the  average  productiveness  of  farm  labour. 

The  attempt  to  arrest  the  tide  toward  the  city  by 
making  the  farmer  and  his  equipment  more  effective 
undertakes  to  overcome  an  effect  by  making  more 
operative  its  principal  cause ! 

Apart  from  chemical  possibilities,  there  are  only  two 
methods  of  increasing  the  food  supply.  One  is  by 

*U.  S.  Department  of  Agriculture,  Bureau  of  Statistics,  Bulletin 
94,  p.  57. 


261 

enlarging  the  area  under  cultivation;  the  other  is  by 
improving  agriculture. 

The  experience  of  the  United  States  during  the 
nineteenth  century  demonstrates,  as  we  have  seen, 
that  the  former  method  does  not  restrict  the  growth 
of  the  city.  Early  hi  the  century  the  making  of  new 
settlements  was  necessarily  slow  because  transporta- 
tion was  poor  and  forests  had  to  be  felled.  When  the 
pioneer  reached  the  prairie,  settlement  proceeded  more 
rapidly,  and  during  the  latter  hah*  of  the  century 
legislation,  immigration,  and  railway  transportation 
conspired  to  stimulate  the  movement  beyond  all 
precedent.  But  whatever  the  rate  of  settlement,  slow 
or  fast,  the  urban  population  increased  more  rapidly 
than  the  rural  throughout  the  century;  and  not  only 
so,  but  the  percentage  engaged  in  agriculture  steadily 
decreased. 

Even  if  we  imagine  that  under  some  untried  condi- 
tions the  occupation  of  new  lands  might  drain  the 
cities,  this  restriction  of  their  growth  could  be  only 
temporary  because  hi  every  country  there  is  only  a 
limited  amount  of  arable  land.  This  fact  alone,  quite 
apart  from  other  considerations,  would  necessitate 
the  ultimate  dominance  of  the  city.  If  the  entire 
agricultural  population  were  fully  determined  to  stay 
on  the  soil,  any  increase  in  that  population  would 
necessitate  the  subdivision  of  farms  until  an  inevitable 
limit  was  reached,  and  then  all  further  increase  would  be 
forced  to  migrate  to  the  city.  That  is,  want  of  room 
fixes  a  natural  and  necessary  limit  to  the  growth  of 
agricultural  population  in  every  land,  while  cities  may 
grow  indefinitely  great,  without  any  limit  whatever, 
so  long  as  they  can  secure  adequate  supplies,  for  which 
they  may  draw  upon  all  the  world. 


262  THE  NEW  WORLD -LIFE 

If  the  one  method  of  increasing  the  food  supply 
demands  more  land,  the  other  requires  more  man, 
and  in  agriculture,  as  we  have  seen,  the  more  man  the 
fewer  men.  When  the  world's  arable  land  is  all  under 
cultivation,  any  increase  of  the  food  supply  must 
depend  on  more  skillful  agriculture.  Every  consider- 
ation of  public  welfare  and  of  private  reward  will  then 
draw  able  men  (perhaps  the  ablest)  to  the  cultivation 
of  the  soil,  and  inefficient  farmers  will  be  driven  from 
the  land  by  competition. 

There  is  absolutely  no  escape  from  the  conclusion 
that  the  increasing  disproportion  between  rural  and 
urban  population  must  continue  until  there  has  been 
reached  the  largest  world  population  consistent  with 
the  accepted  standard  of  well-being  for  the  race.  An 
established  equilibrium  between  the  birth  rate  and  the 
death  rate  will  then  keep  the  whole  population  station- 
ary except  as  science  may  increase  the  possibilities 
of  food  production. 

It  has  been  imagined  by  some  that  because  electricity 
is  easily  distributed  it  will  eventually,  by  establishing 
cottage  industries,  distribute  the  population  which 
steam  has  concentrated.  But  power  is  only  one  of 
several  factors  in  manufacturing.  Raw  materials 
are  cheaper  when  bought  in  large  quantities,  and  the 
organization  of  industry  on  a  large  scale  affords  many 
economies.  Moreover,  facilities  of  transportation  and 
easy  access  to  the  labor  market  are  very  important 
considerations  in  industrial  competition.  These  ad- 
vantages of  big  business  make  it  impossible  for  the 
electric  motor  to  carry  competitive  industry  back  to 
the  home  or  the  village. 

This  whole  back-to-the-farm  philosophy  is  utterly 
fallacious  because  it  ignores  fundamental  economic 


2G3 

and  social  facts  and  violates  fundamental  economic 
and  social  laws,  which  are  as  stubbornly  indifferent 
to  sentiment,  persuasion,  and  command  as  are  other 
natural  laws. 

Queen  Elizabeth  undertook  a  back-to-the-land  move- 
ment when  she  issued  a  proclamation  against  the 
further  growth  of  London;  and  King  Canute  attempted 
a  back-to-the-sea  movement  when  he  forbade  the 
further  encroachment  of  the  tide;  and  they  both  had 
the  same  measure  of  success  that  is  attending  the 
modern  movement. 

A  tendency  to  leave  the  country  for  the  city  was 
recognized  and  resisted  long  before  Elizabeth's  day. 
Aristotle  thought  the  ideal  city  should  be  limited  to 
10,000  inhabitants.  Plutarch  warned  his  generation 
against  the  growth  of  great  cities.  Cicero  made  re- 
peated efforts  to  turn  back  the  tide  from  the  country. 
Virgil  lamented  the  disposition  to  abandon  the  farm 
for  the  city;  "The  plough  is  no  longer  honored;  the 
husbandmen  have  been  led  away,  and  the  fields  are 
foul  with  weeds." 

Justinian  resorted  to  legal  measures  to  put  a 
period  to  the  growth  of  the  city,  as  did  also  mediaeval 
statesmen  and  monarchs.  The  further  growth  of 
Paris  was  repeatedly  prohibited  by  law  during  the 
sixteenth  century.  Many  proclamations  against  the 
growth  of  London  were  issued  by  the  Tudors^and 
Stuarts;1  but  the  authority  of  the  sovereign  is  no 
more  effective  against  natural  law  than  is  the  lament 
of  the  poet. 

For  two  thousand  years  men  have  deplored  and 
resisted  the  growth  of  the  city;  and  for  two  thousand 
years  resistance  has  failed.  The  opposition  to  the 

'A.  F.  Weber's  "The  Growth  of  Cities,"  p.  454. 


264  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

growth  of  the  city  was  once  reinforced  by  devastating 
armies,  pestilence,  famine,  and  fire.  Does  any  one 
imagine  that  with  these  enemies  of  the  city's  growth 
overcome,  and  with  the  influences  which  promote 
that  growth  multiplied  a  thousandfold  there  is  now 
any  better  prospect  of  successful  opposition? 

The  world  must  become  reconciled  to  living  in 
cities.  It  is  useless  to  spend  time  deploring  the  in- 
evitable, and  worse  than  useless  to  shut  our  eyes  to 
facts  because  we  do  not  like  them.  Certainly  there 
is  peril  when  civilization  is  dominated  by  a  rabble- 
ruled  city,  but  economic  and  social  laws  will  have 
their  way  just  the  same.  They  are  as  indifferent  to 
any  danger  which  may  be  involved  in  their  operation 
as  gravitation  is  indifferent  to  the  peril  of  stumbling 
over  a  precipice. 

The  remedy  must  be  found  not  in  the  worse  than 
forlorn  hope  of  fighting  the  inevitable,  but  in  con- 
centrating our  efforts  on  making  the  inevitable  the 
preferable. 

m.      THE  MEANING  OP  THE   CITY'S  DOMINANCE 

Let  us  turn  now  to  consider  the  significance  of  the 
fact  that  urban  population  must  certainly  and  neces- 
sarily outgrow  the  rural. 

1.  The  significance  of  the  city's  overwhelming 
numbers. 

It  is  the  average  man  on  whom  the  success  of  popular 
institutions  depends.  In  the  past  this  fateful  man  has 
lived  in  the  country;  in  the  near  future  he  will  live 
in  the  city.  What  the  national  physique  is  to  be 
whether  it  is  to  improve  or  degenerate,  will  be  settled 
in  the  city.  The  intelligence  of  the  nation  will  be 
measured  by  the  intelligence  of  the  city.  The  moral 


NEW  PROBLEM  OF  THE  CITY         265 

standards  of  the  nation  will  be  determined  by  the  morals 
of  the  city. 

In  the  past,  country  and  city  have  powerfully  in- 
fluenced each  other,  but  there  is  a  constant  shifting 
of  wealth,  of  population,  of  influence,  and  of  power, 
which  is  steadily  weakening  the  influence  of  the 
country  on  the  city,  and  as  steadily  strengthening 
the  influence  of  the  city  on  the  country.  With  the 
city  in  possession  of  the  press  and  of  the  greater  part 
of  the  nation's  wealth  it  already  exercises  commanding 
influence,  and  with  the  dominance  which  in  a  democracy 
goes  with  majorities  it  will  soon  sway  commanding 
power.  In  the  nineteenth  century  the  country  con- 
trolled the  city;  early  in  the  twentieth  the  city  will 
control  the  country. 

With  the  redistribution  of  population  which  is 
taking  place  rural  districts  sustain  a  loss  in  Congres- 
sional representation,  and  urban  districts  make  a  gain. 
Changed  legislative  apportionments  will  modify  the 
political  complexion  of  our  State  legislatures  and  be 
reflected  in  the  United  States  Senate.  Thus  our 
legislative  bodies,  State  and  national,  are  so  constituted 
that  they  respond  quickly  to  the  changing  political 
weight  of  country  and  city. 

If  the  popular  belief  is  correct  that  the  strength  of 
one  of  the  two  great  political  parties  of  the  past  century 
is  in  the  country  while  that  of  the  other  is  in  the  city, 
the  early  and  increasing  predominance  of  urban  popu- 
lation, quite  apart  from  any  other  cause,  would  suffice 
to  account  for  a  political  overturning.  Of  course 
there  will  always  be  representatives  of  the  great 
parties  in  both  city  and  country,  but  as  rural  and 
urban  populations  represent  different  industries  they 
will  easily  come  to  an  issue  over  what  they  regard 


266  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

as  conflicting  interests.  For  instance,  farmers  want 
protection  for  their  food  products,  and  city  dwellers 
want  cheaper  food.  Canada  has  magnificent  agri- 
cultural resources.  From  the  basin  of  the  Red  River, 
we  are  told,  to  the  Saskatchewan  there  are  213,000,000 
acres  of  wheat  lands  —  a  region,  1,200  miles  long  and 
averaging  300  miles  in  width.  If  Canada  is  foolish 
enough  to  follow  our  example,  and  deplete  her  virgin 
soil,  she  can  affect  our  agriculture  as  we  affected 
European  during  the  last  half  of  the  nineteenth  century. 
Furthermore,  to  the  south  of  us  there  are  the  vast 
tropical  areas  of  Mexico,  Central  and  South  America, 
with  cheap  labour  at  hand.  If  American  manufactur- 
ers, paying  comparatively  high  wages,  find  it  difficult 
to  meet  foreign  competition,  there  will  be  a  vigorous 
effort  to  force  down  the  price  of  food  in  order  to  reduce 
wages.  Here  are  materials  for  a  conflict  between  city 
and  country,  the  issue  of  which  cannot  be  doubtful. 
The  fact  that  the  city  is  to  have  an  increasing  majority 
of  the  population  makes  it  morally  certain  that  in  due 
time  we  shall  abolish  our  "Corn  Laws"  as  England  did 
hers  in  1846. 

In  their  attitude  toward  various  moral  problems, 
like  temperance  and  the  saloon,  the  country  and  the 
city  are  antagonistic. 

The  religious  complexion  of  rural  and  urban  popu- 
lation is  widely  different.  Protestant  strength  is 
rural,  while  Roman  Catholic  strength  is  urban.  Only 
19.8  per  cent,  of  the  Protestant  membership  is  in 
cities  of  25,000  or  more  inhabitants,  and  80.2  per  cent, 
is  outside  such  cities;  while  52.2  per  cent,  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  membership  is  in  such  cities,  and  47.8  per 
cent,  outside.  Protestants  outside  such  cities  have  a 
majority  of  10,860,000.  Roman  Catholics  hi  such 


NEW  PROBLEM  OF  THE  CITY         267 

cities  have  a  majority  of  2,193,000.  In  the  country  and 
the  smaller  cities,  Protestants  are  nearly  three  times 
as  strong  as  Roman  Catholics.  In  the  cities  having 
a  population  of  25,000  or  more,  Roman  Catholics  are 
50  per  cent,  stronger  than  the  Protestants;  and  in 
the  two  largest  cities  they  are  twice  as  strong. 

Thus,  so  far  as  we  can  see,  the  disproportionate 
growth  of  the  city  will  in  due  time  reverse  the  attitude 
of  the  nation  on  questions  of  the  highest  importance. 
If  this  were  all,  it  would  be  much,  but  we  cannot 
appreciate  the  greatness  of  the  change  which  is  coming 
to  our  country  and  to  the  world  unless  we  consider; 

2.  The  significance  of  a  changed  environment  in  its 
influence  on  an  ever  increasing  majority  of  the  people. 

Up  to  the  present  time  the  greater  part  of  mankind 
have  been  reared  in  a  rural  environment.  From  this 
time  on  an  ever  increasing  proportion,  and  at  length  a 
large  majority,  will  be  reared  in  an  urban  environment. 
Already  77  per  cent,  of  the  people  of  England  and 
Wales  live  in  cities,  and  there  their  children  are  reared; 
and  it  is  only  a  question  of  time  when  nearly  or  quite 
as  large  a  proportion  of  Americans  will  live  in  cities. 

WTith  the  existing  redistribution  of  population,  what- 
ever essential  difference  there  is  between  the  country 
and  the  city  becomes  a  characteristic  difference  be- 
tween the  dominant  civilization  of  the  past  and  the 
dominant  civilization  of  the  future. 

There  are  differences  between  rural  and  urban  en- 
vironment, like  the  shameful  housing  conditions  and 
the  high  mortality,  which  are  a  reproach  to  the  city, 
but  which  are  by  no  means  necessary.  There  are 
others  however  which  would  seem  to  be  essential. 
The  contacts  of  the  country  are  chiefly  with  nature, 
while  those  of  the  city  are  with  human  nature.  On 


268  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

the  farm  the  influence  which  the  parent  exerts  over 
the  child  is  shared  with  few  others;  in  the  city  a  thou- 
sand influences  reach  the  child  which  the  parent  cannot 
control.  This,  I  take  it,  is  the  principal  reason  why 
ideas  and  methods  change  more  slowly  from  generation 
to  generation  in  the  country.  The  farmer  is  conser- 
vative. New  ideas  root  more  easily  among  dense 
populations.  Wide  intercourse  renders  men  less  opin- 
ionated; hence  the  broader-mindedness  of  the  city. 
Then,  too,  the  urbanite  is  subject  to  more  powerful 
stimuli,  such  as  greater  possibilities  of  success  and 
failure,  a  more  intense  competition,  and  more  rapid 
changes  of  fortune.  Furthermore,  in  the  growing  city 
a  decreasing  proportion  of  the  people  own  their  homes, 
which  has  an  important  influence  on  character  and 
life.  On  the  farm  most  men  are  proprietors;  in  the 
city  most  men  are  renters.  Men  have  long  believed 
that  he  who  becomes  the  owner  of  a  bit  of  the  earth 
has  given  bonds  to  maintain  the  existing  order  of 
society.  But  when  the  race  becomes  predominantly 
urban,  it  is  likely  to  slip  this  ancient  anchor.  Thus 
certain  characteristics  which  in  an  agricultural  civili- 
zation we  have  come  to  consider  a  part  of  the  permanent 
fibre  of  human  nature  may  be  distinctly  modified, 
and  with  important  results,  when  the  larger  portion 
of  humanity  come  under  a  radically  different  environ- 
ment. There  are  great  and  grave  possibilities  bound 
up  in  the  fact  that  the  nation  (and  ultimately  the 
race)  is  to  become  as  generally  and  as  thoroughly  urban- 
ized as  heretofore  it  has  been  generally  and  thoroughly 
ruralized. 

Furthermore,  as  the  race  changes  its  home  it  will  also 
change  its  occupation;  and  we  have  seen  in  a  previous 
chapter  how  profoundly  the  occupation  influences 


NEW  PROBLEM  OF  THE  CITY         269 

the  life.  Thus  with  the  predominance  of  the  city, 
civilization  becomes  predominantly  industrial  instead 
of  agricultural;  and  as  the  nation  and  the  race  are 
industrialized,  the  new  industrial  problems  become 
national  and  racial  in  their  scope  and  significance. 

We  may  also  observe  that  the  urban  standard  of 
living  is  much  higher  than  the  rural.  The  constant 
transfer  of  population  from  country  to  city  will, 
therefore,  operate  as  a  constant  stimulus  to  all  in- 
dustries except  the  production  of  the  food  supply,  on 
which  there  will  be  no  increasing  demand  because  a 
given  population  in  the  city  eats  no  more  than  the 
same  number  in  the  country. 

Again,  by  the  changed  environment  involved  in 
the  redistribution  of  the  population  the  great  majority 
of  the  people  are  not  only  urbanized  and  industrial- 
ized but  also  socialized.  The  farmer's  remoteness  from 
his  neighbours  permits  and  encourages  a  freedom 
and  independence  of  action  impossible  to  the  city 
dweller  and  worker.  The  many  processes  involved 
in  preparing  the  soil,  planting,  cultivating,  and  har- 
vesting a  crop  are  not  like  those  embraced  in  making 
a  shoe,  carried  on  at  the  same  time  by  different  work- 
men. They  are  consecutive,  carried  on  by  the  same 
man  at  different  times.  The  close  proximity  of 
others  is  not  constantly  forced  upon  the  sub-conscious- 
ness of  the  farmer.  He  does  not  have  to  time  his 
movements  with  reference  to  a  workman  at  his  left 
and  another  at  his  right.  He  plans  his  work  and 
does  it  with  little  or  no  reference  to  others.  He 
decides  all  questions  in  the  light  of  his  own  personal 
interests  and  convenience.  The  farmer  is  naturally 
individualistic,  just  as  the  agricultural  civilization  of 
the  past  has  been  individualistic. 


270  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

When,  however,  the  farmer  moves  to  town  all 
these  conditions  of  life  change.  His  relations  to  others 
become  far  more  intimate  and  complex.  New  in- 
fluences constantly  operative  modify  him  much  and 
his  children  more.  The  conditions  of  urban  life  and 
of  organized  industry  gradually  create  a  different 
habit  of  mind.  The  vastly  increased  interdependence, 
necessitating  many  services  received  and  many  ren- 
dered, the  refinement  of  the  nervous  system  and  the 
quickening  of  human  sympathies  which  belong  to  the 
complex,  social  organism  of  modern  civilization,  all 
help  to  develop  and  cultivate  the  new  social  spirit 
necessary  to  the  solution  of  the  new  social  problems. 

If  the  great  majority  of  our  population  were  to 
remain  rural  and,  therefore,  strongly  individualistic, 
it  may  well  be  doubted  whether  the  great  social  prob- 
lems of  the  city  would  ever  find  solution.  Certain 
it  is  that  the  social  legislation  enacted  by  the  present 
British  Government  would  have  been  impossible  if 
England  had  remained  chiefly  agricultural. 

Thus  as  a  nation,  once  rural,  becomes  predominantly 
urban,  there  takes  place  something  more  than  a  redis- 
tribution of  population;  there  is  wrought  a  change  in 
the  temper  and  spirit  of  the  people;  the  nation  is  being 
socialized;  and  civilization  which  was  rural,  agri- 
cultural, and  individualistic  becomes  urban,  industrial, 
and  collective. 

This  trend  of  population  to  the  city,  which  is  now 
the  despair  of  so  many  good  people,  may  be  seen  some 
day  to  be  the  providential  preparation  for  the  solution 
of  the  social  problems  which  at  present  it  undoubtedly 
complicates. 

3.  But  we  have  not  dropped  our  plummet  to  the 
bottom  of  this  fact  and  sounded  its  deepest  significance 


NEW  PROBLEM  OF  THE  CITY          271 

until  we  have  considered  the  unborn  cities  of  Asia  and 
of  the  lands  bordering  the  Pacific. 

The  problem  of  the  city  is  not  simply  national  in 
its  scope.  It  is  as  wide  as  the  world,  for  the  industrial 
revolution  which  is  giving  to  the  city  its  new  signif- 
icance, is  destined  to  invade  all  countries.  This  revo- 
lution is  older  in  Europe  than  in  the  United  States; 
it  is  well  under  way  in  Japan,  and  is  beginning  in  India 
and  China.  The  effects  of  this  revolution  will  be 
more  profound  in  Asia  than  in  Europe  and  America, 
because  the  vast  majority  of  that  continent's  800,- 
000,000  and  more  live  in  villages,  and  wherever  the 
industrial  revolution  goes  it  empties  the  villages  into 
the  cities.  The  redistribution  of  population  in  Asia, 
necessitated  by  the  coming  of  the  new  civilization,  will 
mass  several  hundred  millions  in  cities. 

And  not  only  will  Asiatic  millions  be  subjected  to 
a  radical  change  of  environment  in  being  removed 
from  the  village  to  the  city,  they  must  also  undergo 
the  transformation  involved  in  catching  up  with  mod- 
ern civilization.  The  journey  for  which  occidentals 
have  taken  three  thousand  years  the  orientals  will  have 
to  accomplish  in  three  generations.  By  the  incoming 
of  a  new  and  radically  different  civilization  they  will 
be  compelled  in  this  brief  period  to  adjust  themselves 
to  new  and  radically  different  conceptions  and  condi- 
tions of  life. 

Moreover,  vast  changes  in  the  Circum-Pacific 
countries  already  referred  to,  may  be  expected  to  be 
crowded  into  so  brief  a  period  as  to  constitute  nothing 
less  than  a  great  world-crisis. 

We  have  seen  that  these  countries  are  capable  of 
sustaining  many  hundreds  of  millions,  and  that  at 
present  they  are  only  very  partially  developed.  There 


272  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

are  good  reasons  for  believing  that  their  development 
will  take  place  during  the  present  century. 

"At  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century  our 
national  territory  was  less  than  one  fourth  of  its 
present  area,  and  only  a  small  portion  of  that  was 
settled.  ...  In  bringing  this  continental  wilder- 
ness under  the  yoke  of  civilization,  we  organized 
during  the  century  twenty-nine  great  commonwealths, 
twenty-four  of  which  are  each  larger  than  all  England, 
and  the  average  area  of  the  twenty-nine  is  greater 
than  that  of  England,  Wales,  and  Denmark  in  one. 
During  that  century  population  increased  nearly 
71,000,000,  or  1,300  per  cent."1  In  fifty  years  — 
the  last  hah*  of  the  century  —  we  settled  twice  as 
much  territory  as  we  had  occupied  during  the  250 
years  preceding.  This  enormous  acceleration  in  the 
rate  of  settlement  was  due  in  part  to  the  application 
of  machinery  to  agriculture,  the  development  of  more 
effective  methods  of  mining,  and  the  increase  of  capital, 
but  it  was  chiefly  the  result  of  railway  transportation. 
Since  they  came  to  our  aid  their  efficiency  has  been 
increased  many  fold.  We  have  now  nineteen  times 
as  much  capital  as  we  possessed  in  1850.  Mining 
machinery  and  railway  construction  have  been  vastly 
improved;  agricultural  machinery  has  increased  the 
effectiveness  of  the  farmer  many  times;  and  in  addi- 
tion to  all  this  electricity  has  mightily  reinforced  civil- 
ization. Furthermore,  Europe  is  deeply  interested  in 
the  economic  development  of  these  countries,  and  has 
already  invested  some  billions  in  them.  The  Czar 
has  offered  his  European  subjects  extraordinary  in- 
ducements to  settle  in  Siberia.  A  large  stream  of 
immigration  is  entering  Western  Canada.  And  the 
'See  the  writer's  "Challenge  of  the  City,"  p.  9. 


NEW  PROBLEM  OF  THE  CITY         273 

Isthmian  canal  will  have  a  powerful  influence  on  the 
future  of  Western  South  America,  New  Zealand,  and 
Australia. 

In  view  of  all  of  the  above  facts,  it  would  seem  to  be 
less  of  an  undertaking  for  Great  Britain,  Russia, 
Germany,  France,  Italy,  and  the  United  States  to 
develop  the  resources  of  these  Circum-Pacific  countries 
during  the  next  fifty  years  than  it  was  for  the  eastern 
third  of  the  United  States  to  develop  the  western  two 
thirds  during  the  last  hah*  of  the  nineteenth  century. 

The  rapid  increase  of  the  world's  population  is  a 
motive  for  pressing  the  development  of  these  Pacific 
lands.  At  the  present  rate  of  growth  the  population 
of  the  civilized  world  would  double  in  less  than  a 
hundred  years.  That  motive  is  emphasized  by  the 
rapidly  rising  standard  of  living.  Raising  that  stand- 
ard 100  per  cent,  is  commercially  equal  to  doubling 
the  population.  It  is  not  impossible  that  from  these 
two  causes  the  world's  demand  for  the  raw  materials  of 
manufacturers  will  increase  fourfold  during  this  cen- 
tury. This  will  furnish  Europe  and  America  abundant 
motive,  and  the  increase  of  their  capital  by  many  hun- 
dreds of  millions  annually  will  afford  abundant  means 
for  opening  up  the  undeveloped  resources  of  the  con- 
tinents rapidly. 

The  fact  that  during  the  nineteenth  century  over 
500  cities  were  born  in  the  United  States  places  it 
beyond  reasonable  doubt  that  the  redistribution  of 
Asia's  850,000,000  inhabitants  and  the  development 
of  the  resources  of  the  world's  virgin  lands  will  give 
birth  to  some  thousands  of  cities.  This  process  of 
world  development  and  transformation  will  not  be 
completed  during  this  century  any  more  than  the 
development  of  our  great  West  was  completed  during 


274  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

the  nineteenth  century.  But  settlement  and  the 
demands  of  commerce,  manufactures,  and  mining 
fixed  the  new  centres  of  population  and  shaped  begin- 
nings which  will  mould  the  future.  What  the  nine- 
teenth century  was  to  the  undeveloped  regions  of  the 
United  States,  the  twentieth  century  will  be  to  the 
undeveloped  countries  of  the  earth. 

The  extreme  difficulty  of  remodelling  a  city  makes 
beginnings  significant  and  prophetic. l  Montreal,  Que- 
bec, Boston,  New  York,  Philadelphia,  and  New  Orleans 
all  have  a  distinctive  character  to-day  which  was 
given  to  them  by  their  founders.  This  is  a  new  for- 
mative age,  for  the  men  of  the  next  two  or  three  gen- 
erations will  found  the  cities  which  will  shape  and 
dominate  the  civilizations  of  the  greater  part  of  man- 
kind. What  if  the  founders  of  London,  of  New  York, 
and  of  Chicago  could  have  foreseen  what  we  see, 
and  could  have  foreknown  what  we  know  concerning 
the  influence  of  environment,  the  effects  of  congestion, 
the  importance  of  good  sanitary  conditions,  and  the 
like,  how  different  would  have  been  these  cities  to-day, 
how  much  less  of  misery  and  degradation,  of  vice  and 
crime,  of  disease  and  death  would  they  have  known? 

The  stamp  which  during  the  next  two  or  three 
generations  will  be  given  to  the  new  civilization  through 
the  city  will  influence  the  future,  world  without  end. 
To  seize  the  opportunity  is  to  fashion  the  mould  into 
which  the  new  and  plastic  civilization  will  be  run. 
To  miss  the  opportunity  is  to  leave  future  generations 
to  file  the  cold  cast. 

When  the  tremendous  significance  of  the  coming 
city  flashed  upon  my  mind,  it  shook  me,  body  and  soul, 

'See  the  writer's  "Our  Country,"  Chap.  XII,  "The  Influence  of 
Early  Settlers." 


NEW  PROBLEM  OF  THE  CITY         275 

like  an  ague.  I  wish  it  might  shake  millions  of  men  out 
of  their  lethargy,  and  millions  of  money  out  of  their 
pockets  to  meet  the  mighty  emergency  involved  in 
this  vast  cosmic  transformation. 

Let  us  have  done  with  the  false  and  foolish  cry,  "Back 
to  the  soil,"  which  is  a  futile  attempt  to  evade  the 
problem  of  the"  city.  It  is  worse  than  useless  because 
it  distracts  attention  from  the  real  problem  and  diverts 
funds  from  well-matured  and  scientific  plans  which 
would  throw  valuable  light  on  the  whole  subject  but 
which  have  been  forced  to  lie  on  the  shelf  for  precious 
years. 

We  have  thus  far  discussed  the  city  in  the  abstract. 
It  will  help  us  to  a  clearer  conception  of  its  significance 
to  glance  for  a  moment  at  a  concrete  example. 

4.     Consider  New  York  City  as  a  prophecy. 

Do  we  appreciate  the  meaning  of  that  little  row  of 
figures  which  tells  us  that  in  1910  the  population  of 
New  York  was  4,766,883?  That  is  2,000,000,  more 
people  than  rebelled  against  George  III  in  1776.  That 
is  420,000  more  people  than  can  be  found  hi  the 
remainder  of  the  State.  That  is  a  larger  population 
than  lives  in  any  one  of  forty-four  great  States  of 
the  Union;  large  enough  to  make  two  States  like  Cali- 
fornia with  its  great  cities,  or  two  like  Iowa,  or  Minne- 
sota, or  Wisconsin.  This  one  city  would  make  five 
Colorados  with  a  sufficient  remainder  to  populate 
Utah  and  Vermont.  It  could  furnish  inhabitants 
for  three  New  England  States,  for  Delaware,  and  for 
nine  commonwealths  west  of  the  Mississippi,  and  then 
have  left  people  enough  to  make  a  city  twice  as  large 
as  Aristotle  thought  any  city  ought  to  be.  New  York 
has  twice  the  population  of  Norway,  a  million  more 
than  live  in  the  twenty-two  cantons  of  Switzerland, 


276  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

and  nearly  400,000  more  than  live  in  the  continent  of 
Australia. 

I  try  to  make  New  York  real  to  our  apprehension 
because  it  is  prophetic  of  several  other  cities  in  our 
own  country  and  many  others  in  the  world.  When  our 
urban  population  is  eight  times  its  present  magnitude 
(and  that  will  be  long  before  the  nation's  population 
has  increased  eightfold)  St.  Louis,  Boston,  and  Cleve- 
land, if  they  get  their  due  share,  will  each  be  as  large 
as  the  New  York  of  1910.  Philadelphia  will  then  be 
more  than  twice  as  large  as  the  present  metropolis, 
and  Chicago  more  than  three  times  as  large.  If 
New  York  then  has  eight  times  its  present  numbers, 
it  will  still  fall  short  of  the  expectations  of  Mr.  H.  G. 
Wells,  who  in  his  Anticipations,  suggests  that  in  time 
London,  St.  Petersburg,  and  Berlin  will  each  exceed 
20,000,000,  while  New  York,  Philadelphia,  and  Chicago 
will  probably  contain  twice  that  number. 

These  figures  seem  incredible  only  because  they  are 
unfamiliar.  New  York  has  increased  fifteenfold  in 
seventy  years  —  within  the  memory  of  many  of  its 
citizens.  Is  it  incredible  that,  as  the  world's  metrop- 
olis, it  will  gain  sevenfold  in  all  the  ages  to  come? 
London,  as  the  world's  metropolis,  has  gamed  six- 
fold since  1800  when  its  population  was  just  under  a 
million. 

But  we  have  no  adequate  conception  of  the  city's 
place  in  the  world's  future  unless  we  have  some  appre- 
ciation of  the  wealth  which  is  being  concentrated 
therein  far  more  rapidly  than  population.  The  ex- 
penditures of  a  municipality  are  a  suggestion  of  the 
resources  of  its  citizens.  The  total  of  New  York's 
budget  for  1913  would  meet  the  entire  annual  ex- 
penditures of  the  Dominion  of  Canada  twice  over  with 


NEW  PROBLEM  OF  THE  CITY         277 

nearly  enough  left  to  provide  for  the  budget  of  the 
Australian  commonwealth.  It  is  five  times  that  of 
the  kingdom  of  Norway,  and  seven  times  that  of  the 
kingdom  of  Greece.  It  is  sufficient  to  relieve  the 
governments  of  Turkey,  China,  and  Persia  of  their 
annual  burdens  with  a  trifle  of  $7,000,000  left  over.1 

In  a  rapid  impressionist  sketch  like  this  we  can  give 
no  time  to  details.  We  can  make  no  mention  of  the 
thousands  of  philanthropic  and  charitable  organiza- 
tions of  New  York.  We  cannot  enter  one  of  the  133 
hospitals,  nor  consider  the  work  of  one  of  the  1,133 
churches,  nor  visit  one  of  the  570  public  school  build- 
ings, to  say  nothing  of  colleges,  universities,  professional 
and  private  schools.  We  must  confine  our  attention  to 
those  facts  which  indicate  the  wide  relations  of  the 
city  with  the  nation  and  the  world. 

The  factories  of  New  York  City  draw  their  raw 
materials  from  all  the  earth,  and  send  their  products 
to  all  peoples.  They  number  25,938,  counting  only 
those  which  are  organized  under  the  factory  system. 
The  imports  and  exports  of  the  city  amount  to  $1,746- 
000,000  —  $19  for  every  man,  woman,  and  child  of 
the  United  States.  The  exchanges  of  the  clearing- 
house for  a  single  year  make  a  total  of  $102,553,000,000 
—  about  $100  for  every  human  being  on  the  planet  — 
and  averaging  $338,000,000  in  daily  clearings. 

The  possible  influence  of  the  press  of  a  great  city  is 
suggested  by  the  total  issue  of  all  its  periodicals,  daily, 
weekly,  monthly,  and  quarterly,  for  a  year.  There  are 
927  such  papers  and  magazines  published  in  New  York. 

'The  annual  expenditures  of  Canada  are  $84,064,000;  of  the  Au- 
stralian Commonwealth  $29,988,000;  of  Norway  $36,839,000;  of 
Greece  $27,209,000;  of  Turkey  $157,745,000;  of  China  $21,220,000; 
and  of  Persia  $7,174,000.  The  budget  of  New  York  City  for  1913  is 
$193,000,000,  or  $528,000  a  day. 


278  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

One  third  of  them  do  not  give  their  circulation.  The 
total  number  of  copies  issued  by  the  remaining  620  in 
one  year  is  2,003,863,000.  This  would  supply  424 
copies  to  every  resident  of  the  city,  or  22  to  every 
inhabitant  of  the  United  States,  or  one  to  every  mem- 
ber of  the  race,  with  a  surplus  of  400,000,000  for  some 
other  planet.  These  periodicals,  which  discuss  well-nigh 
every  subject  of  human  interest,  are  issued  in  twenty- 
eight  different  languages,  indicating  the  highly  hetero- 
geneous character  of  the  population. l  Such  a  city  is  a 
gigantic  world  ganglion,  whose  nerves  thrill  with  the 
life  of  mankind. 

The  problem  of  the  city  is  immensely  complicated 
by  this  heterogeneous  character  of  its  population. 
Let  us  attempt  to  visualize  it.  By  some  magic  greater 
than  that  of  science  we  will  transport  the  two  English 
cities  of  Oxford  and  Canterbury  across  the  sea  and 
establish  them  on  some  spacious  site  as  the  American 
home  of  78,000  Englishmen.  To  this  beginning  we  will 
add  a  suburb  of  Glasgow  having  23,000  Scotchmen. 
Close  by  we  will  place  the  town  of  Cork  with  its 
102,000  inhabitants,  and  around  it  we  will  gather  the 
entire  population  of  Limerick  County,  namely,  142,000 
—  adding  enough  Irish  villages  to  make  the  whole  a 
city  of  252,000  Irishmen.  From  Norway  we  will  bring 
Fredrikshald  and  Larvik  with  their  22,000  souls. 
Sweden  shall  furnish  us  Halsingborg  with  villages 
enough  added  to  make  a  city  of  35,000.  Emperor 
William  shall  transfer  to  us  Posen  and  Utrecht,  throw- 
ing in  a  few  dozen  villages,  together  making  a  city  of 

lThe  languages  are  as  follows,  Arabic,  Armenian,  Bohemian, 
Chinese,  Croatian,  Danish,  English,  Finnish,  French,  German,  Greek, 
Hebrew,  Hungarian,  Italian,  Japanese,  Lithuanian,  Magyar,  Nor- 
wegian, Polish,  Roumanian,  Russian,  Ruthenian,  Slovak,  Slovinian, 
Spanish,  Swedish,  Syrian,  and  Yiddish. 


NEW  PROBLEM  OF  THE  CITY          279 

279,000  Germans.  Austria  shall  present  us  with 
Prague  and  its  224,000  people,  while  Hungary  shall 
add  a  city  with  an  unpronouncable  name,  making 
266,000  from  the  Dual  Empire.  Constanza  multi- 
plied by  two  will  give  us  a  city  of  32,000  Roumanians 
which  shall  be  added  to  our  cosmopolitan  population. 
Italy  shall  part  with  Venice,  Pisa,  Verona,  and  Como, 
which  with  their  surrounding  villages  will  add  a  city 
of  340,000  Italians.  From  Russia  shall  come  Kishinev, 
Sebastopol,  Astrakhan,  and  Constadt,  also  villages  from 
Poland,  Finland,  and  the  Caucasus,  all  together  making 
a  Russian  city  of  483,000.  When  we  have  transported 
across  the  continent  Vancouver  with  its  25,000  Cana- 
dians, and  have  brought  from  Timbuktu  villages  enough 
to  make  a  little  city  of  16,000  coloured  people  —  we 
shall  still  lack  nearly  100,000  to  represent  New  York's 
foreign-born  population.  How  shall  we  do  justice 
to  the  polyglot  character  of  this  people,  more  motley 
than  the  dwellers  in  Jerusalem  on  the  day  of  Pentecost, 
and  like  them  "out  of  every  nation  under  heaven"? 
To  complete  our  cosmopolitan  city  we  will  collect  1,000 
villages,  averaging  ninety-eight  souls  each,  from  every 
corner  of  every  continent,  "Parthians,  Medes,  and 
Elamites,  and  dwellers  in  Mesopotamia,  in  Judea,  and 
Cappadocia,  in  Pontus,  and  Asia,  Phrygia,  and  Pam- 
phylia,  in  Egypt,  and  in  the  parts  of  Libya  about 
Cyrene,  and  strangers  of  Rome,  Jews  and  proselytes, 
Cretes  and  Arabians,"  and  all  the  rest.  Among  our 
city's  1,927,713  foreign-born  you  shall  scarcely  search 
in  vain  for  men  from  under  every  sky. 

"Complete,"  did  I  say?  Our  city  is  not  yet  half 
grown  and  lacks  many  characteristic  elements.  The 
American-born  of  foreign  or  mixed  parentage  are 
almost  as  numerous  as  the  foreign-born,  and  constitute 


280  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

a  separate  problem.  To  provide  for  them  we  will 
make  room  for  eighteen  more  cities,  each  having 
100,000  inhabitants;  that  is,  as  large  as  Albany;  or 
more  accurately,  eighteen  cities  widely  varying  in 
size  but  averaging  100,000  each. 

And  now  we  have  reached  the  most  difficult  part  of 
our  undertaking,  for  there  are  921,318  native-born 
of  native  parentage  for  whom  we  must  provide.  What 
shall  we  do  for  those  of  American  stock?  We  have 
brought  English  cities  for  Englishmen,  and  Italian 
cities  for  Italians,  and  German  cities  for  Germans, 
but  there  are  no  American  cities  in  America!  It  is 
said  that  in  Cincinnati  an  American-born  citizen  was 
not  permitted  to  vote  because  he  was  unable  to  pro- 
duce naturalization  papers.  The  best  we  can  do  is 
to  select  cities  in  the  Southland  where  as  yet  there 
are  comparatively  few  immigrants  and  place  them 
alongside  of  our  collection  of  foreign  cities,  and  of 
our  nameless  cities  filled  with  native-born  citizens  of 
foreign  names  and  foreign  blood.  We  will  add  Rich- 
mond, Va.,  with  127,000  inhabitants;  Charlotte,  N.  C-, 
with  34,000;  Columbia,  S.  C.,  with  26,000;  and  Charles- 
ton with  58,000;  Augusta,  Ga.,  with  37,000,  and  Atlanta 
with  154,000;  Jacksonville,  Fla.,  with  57,000;  Mont- 
gomery, Ala.,  with  38,000,  and  Birmingham  with 
132,000;  Austin,  Texas,  with  29,000;  Little  Rock, 
Ark.,  with  45,000;  Lexington,  Ky.,  with  35,000;  Chat- 
tanooga, Term.,  with  44,000,  and  Nashville  with 
110,000.  We  have  now  to  add  only  a  city  of  75,000 
American-born  negroes,  and  our  picture  of  New  York 
is  complete. 

Surely  a  great  city  is  a  little  world  —  a  human  wil- 
derness—  whose  millions  are  mostly  strangers  one  to 
another,  and  yet  strangely  united  in  one  vast  and 


NEW  PROBLEM  OF  THE  CITY          281 

varied  life.  What  a  multiplicity  of  races,  of  languages, 
of  customs,  of  religions,  of  virtues  and  of  vices !  What 
contrasts  of  characters;  what  conflict  of  opinions,  preju- 
dices, of  principles,  what  common  and  yet  what  rival 
interests;  what  a  maze  of  motives;  what  a  labyrinth  of 
possibilities !  But  one  eye  in  the  universe  can  measure 
it  all. 

The  chief  significance  of  this  strange  and  mighty 
city  is  that  it  is  prophetic.  To-day  there  is  but  one 
New  York;  to-morrow  there  will  be  several;  the  day 
after  there  will  be  many. 

New  York  is  prophetic  not  only  of  the  vast  size  of 
many  future  cities,  but  also  of  their  heterogeneous 
character.  The  typical  city  of  Europe  and  Asia  was 
produced  by  the  natural  increase  of  its  population  and 
by  additions  of  the  same  blood  from  the  country. 
Notwithstanding  the  presence  of  a  few  foreigners,  the 
typical  city  of  the  Old  World  has  been  and  still  is 
homogeneous.  We  think  of  London  as  thoroughly 
cosmopolitan,  and  yet  the  Census  Report  for  1901 
shows  that  94  per  cent,  of  the  population  were  natives 
of  Great  Britain,  and  that  only  2.98  per  cent,  were 
foreigners.  Contrast  this  with  New  York,  40  per 
cent,  of  whose  population  are  foreign-born  and  only 
19  per  cent,  are  native-born  of  native  parentage.  The 
composition  of  the  city  created  by  the  new  civilization 
is  profoundly  influenced  by  modern  facilities  of  trans- 
portation. We  may,  therefore,  expect  the  coming  cities 
of  the  Pacific  countries  to  be  highly  composite  in  char- 
acter. This  is  of  vital  concern  to  democracy.  A  strong 
sultan  might  successfully  govern  a  conglomerate  popu- 
lation in  Constantinople,  of  many  races,  of  many 
tongues,  of  many  religions,  but  how  shall  such  a  popu- 
lation govern  itself?  Common  political  action  implies 


282  THE  NEW  WORLD  -  LIFE 

common  understanding,  common  interests,  common 
aims.  Without  these  "popular  government"  means 
boss  government. 

We  know  how  New  York  governs,  or  rather  mis- 
governs itself.  Would  we  trust  New  York  to  govern 
the  nation?  What  would  become  of  democracy? 
The  city  in  control  of  the  nation  and  yet  incapable  of 
se//-control  is  like  Nero  on  the  throne. 

We  have  seen  that  the  city  will  certainly  and  of 
necessity  dominate  the  nation  and  the  world;  and  we 
have  seen  the  significance  of  this  fact,  that  it  means  far 
more  than  political  control.  We  have  seen  that  the 
city  will  determine  the  physique,  the  intellect,  the 
moral  character,  the  destiny  of  the  race. 

The  problem  of  the  city,  then,  is  the  advance 
problem  of  the  nation  and  of  the  world. 

The  modern  city  is  the  microcosm  of  the  new 
civilization.  It  is  in  the  city  that  the  new  industrial 
problem  must  be  solved,  for  the  city  is  the  centre  of 
industrial  organization.  It  is  in  the  city  that  the  new 
problem  of  wealth  must  be  solved,  for  there  is  wealth 
massed.  It  is  in  the  city  that  the  new  race  problem 
must  be  solved,  because  it  is  there  that  the  races  are 
forced  into  the  closest  competitive  relations.  It  is 
in  the  city  that  the  new  problem  of  the  relations 
of  the  individual  and  society  must  be  solved,  because 
there  is  the  social  organism  most  complex.  It  is  in 
the  city  that  the  new  problem  of  legislation  must 
be  solved,  because  there  the  readjustments  required 
by  i  the  new  civilization  are  most  radical  and  most 
numerous. 

Thus  as  the  meridians  of  the  earth  radiate  from  one 
pole  and  focus  in  the  other,  so  these  great  world 
problems  of  the  new  civilization  spring  from  the  hi- 


NEW  PROBLEM  OF  THE  CITY          283 

dustrial  revolution  and  gather  in  the  city.  The  prob- 
lem of  the  city,  therefore,  is  nothing  less  than  the 
problem  of  civilization,  the  problem  of  building  in  the 
earth  the  New  Jerusalem.  It  is  the  problem  of  society's 
actualizing  its  highest  possibilities  by  living  in  har- 
mony with  the  laws  of  its  own  being,  thus  realizing  the 
new  social  ideal. 

Does  such  a  problem  seem  beyond  all  human  power 
and  possibility  of  solution?  Not  to  those  who  believe 
in  God  and  in  the  coming  of  his  kingdom. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  Divine-human  Book  our 
first  glimpse  of  man  is  in  a  garden.  It  is  a  paradise 
of  perfect  beauty,  of  perfect  simplicity,  of  perfect 
innocence.  It  is  a  paradise  of  virtue  unfallen  because 
of  virtue  untried.  We  turn  to  the  close  of  the  book, 
and  there  we  catch  another  glimpse  of  man  in  a  perfect 
estate.  We  see  in  this  vision  not  the  beauty  of  inno- 
cence, but  the  beauty  of  holiness.  We  see  not  the 
unstable  peace  of  virtue  untried,  but  the  established 
peace  of  virtue  victorious. 

In  the  first  picture  we  see  individualistic  man;  in  the 
second  we  see  socialized  man.  In  the  first  we  see 
man  unfallen,  sustaining  right  relations  to  his  Creator. 
In  the  second  we  see  man  redeemed,  sustaining  right 
relations  to  his  God  and  to  his  fellows. 

The  story  of  this  marvellous  human  drama  begins  hi 
the  country;  its  denouement  is  in  the  city.  The 
crown  and  consummation  of  our  civilization  —  the  full 
coming  of  the  Kingdom  of  God  on  earth  —  is  typified 
not  by  a  garden,  but  by  a  city  —  a  Holy  City  —  into 
which  shall  enter  nothing  unclean,  and  nothing  that 
maketh  a  lie. 

Paradise  lost  was  a  garden;  Paradise  regained  will 
be  a  city. 


284  THE  NEW  WORLD -LIFE 


In  this  volume  it  has  been  shown  that  there  is  being 
developed  a  new  world-life;  that  the  new  altruism  and 
the  new  knowledge  justify  and  demand  a  new  world- 
ideal;  that  the  new  world-problems  which  are  forced 
upon  us  by  this  new  world-life  spring  from  the  selfish- 
ness and  ignorance  which  the  new  altruism  and  the 
new  knowledge  are  calculated  to  remove. 

The  following  volume  will  show  that  the  new  —  that 
is,  the  social  —  interpretation  of  Christianity  not  only 
anticipates  this  great  ideal  which  to  the  modern  world 
is  new,  but  clarifies,  spiritualizes,  and  vitalizes  it. 
Furthermore,  it  will  show  that  the  new  altruism  is 
only  a  faint  suggestion  of  the  enthusiasm  for  humanity 
which  the  social  interpretation  of  Christianity  will  cre- 
ate when  it  has  been  generally  accepted  by  the  churches, 
thus  furnishing  a  new  inspiration  and  an  achieving 
power  which  the  beneficence  of  the  world  has  hereto- 
fore lacked.  It  will  also  point  out  the  social  principles 
of  Jesus  which  must  be  followed  in  employing  the  new 
methods  revealed  by  the  new  knowledge  (science)  for 
the  solution  of  the  great  social  problems. 

Thus  it  will  be  shown  that  the  teachings  of  Jesus 
afford  the  aim,  the  principles,  and  the  motive  power 
for  realizing  the  world-ideal  after  which  men  are 
groping  to-day. 


INDEX 

PAGE 

Agriculture,  Department  of 259 

Effects  of  scientific 257-262 

Ahlefeld,  Vice- Admiral 41 

Altruism,  the  new 74-83 

Amalgamation  of  races  not  desirable 173-175 

not  possible 168-173 

obstacles  to  universal 168-173 

Amidon,  Judge 204 

Andrews,  Dr.  E.  Benjamin 180 

Angell,  Norman 42 

Arnold,  Matthew 159 

Atkinson,  Edward 23,  109 

Austria-Hungary,  populations  of 171,172 

"Back  to  the  Land" 237-264 

Bagehot,  Prof.  Walter 192,196 

Bailey,  Dean  L.  H 78,  233 

note 241,   242,  259 

Baldwin,  Prof.  J.  M 185,187 

Bible,  circulation  of 13 

Bishops  of  the  M.  E.  Church,  utterances  of 102, 103 

Bismarck,  Prince 40 

Bookwalter,  John  W 254 

Boss,  the  political 196 

Brooks,  John  Graham 124 

Bryce,  Rt.  Hon.  James 130,  139,  223 

Bubonic  plague,  ravages  of 67 

Buckle 11 

Burke,   Edmund 94 

Butler,  Dr.  N.  M 78 

Canada,  reciprocity  with 34 

Capitals  of  Europe,  population  of 232 

Carnegie,  Andrew 28,  60 

China,  increase  of  population  of 162-165 

famine  in,  146;  "open  door," 27-30 

revenues  of 126 

Cities  yet  unborn 270-275 

City,  causes  of  growth  of 228-230 

dominance  of,  meaning  of 264-283 

in  politics 265,  266 

in  moral  questions 266 

in  religion 266,  267 

285 


286  INDEX 

environment,  influence  of 267-270 

problem  of  the 228-283 

new  problem  of  the 91,  92 

Civilization  in  condition  of  flux 4 

Clark,  Prof.  John  B 93,  94,  95 

Climate,  influence  of 10 

Colonies,  manufacturers  and  navies 113,  114 

Cobden,  Richard 195 

Commerce,  influence  of,  on  cities 229,  230 

of  the  world 25 

three  stages  of 20-23 

Commercialism,  perils  of 144,  145 

Commons,  Prof.  John  R 109,  110 

Competition,  "cut-throat" 34,  35 

free 25 

Comte 65 

Congestion  of  the  city,  committee  on 248,  249 

Court  of  Arbitral  Justice,  International 51 

Creation,  unity  of 5,  6 

Crozier,  Bishop 176,  177 

Curry,  Hon.  J.  L.  M 189 

Custom,  development  of,  in  Orient 190,  191 

Darwin,  Charles 43 

Democracy,  modern  spirit  of 154,  155 

Density  of  populations 234 

Dickens,  Charles , 73 

Discontent,  intelligent 155,  156 

popular,  and  increasing  production 108-111 

peril  of 145-158 

Divide,  crossing  the 16,  17 

Dodge,  Mr.  J.  R 252,  253 

Dodge,  Mr.  William  E 31,  87,  158 

Dolbear,  Prof.  A.  E 59 

Drummond,  Prof.  Henry 6,  7,  95,  243,  244 

Economy,  orthodox  political,  selfish 103,  104 

Eliot,  President  Emeritus 69,  106 

Emerson 12,  255 

Emigration,  Asiatic 163-167 

Chinese 163-165 

Environment 9-17,  66 

Eugenics 65,  66 

Evolution 6 

Family  tree 183-185 

Federal  Council  of  Churches  of  Christ 14 

Fisher,  Professor 129,  130 

Fiske,  Prof.  John 43,  53,  54 

Fitch,  Mr.  John  A 100, 101 

Frontier,  influence  of,  on  lawlessness 208 

Galton,  Sir  Francis 65 

Gary,  Judge 110 

Giffen,  Sir  Robert 108,  134,  232 


INDEX  287 

Gillette,  Prof.  John  M 238 

Gladden,  Dr.  Washington 106 

Gladstone 49 

Goodnow,  Professor 215 

Gorgas,  Colonel 69 

Great  Britain,  cultivated  area  of 29 

Gulick,  Dr.  Sidney  L 189,  191 

Hadley,  President 139,  216 

Hague,  the 51 

conference 50 

court  of  arbitration  at 16 

tribunal 50 

Hale,  Professor 60,  61 

Harlan,  Justice 142 

Hays,  Mr.  W.  M.  . 247,  259 

Heaven  as  a  social  ideal 81 

Herodotus 142 

Hollander,  Professor 233 

Howard,  Justice  0 197,216,  222 

Huxley,  Professor 74,  97,  153 

Ideal  social,  defined 56 

Ideal,  a  new  world- 53-83 

Immigration,  influence  of,  on  lawlessness 208,  209 

India,  population  of 232 

Individual,  the,  developed  hi  Occident 193-198 

suppressed  in  Orient 189-193 

explains  Oriental  civilization 192,  193 

and  society 176,  202 

new  problem  of  the  relations  of 91,  199-202 

and  society,  the  sacrifice  of  either  to  the  other 188-199 

versus  society 178-180 

society  versus 180-181 

Individualism,  a  vicious 212 

development  of  American 209,  210 

influence  of,  on  crime 209,  210 

Industrial  Workers  of  the  World 220,  221 

Industry,  evolution  of  organized 98,  99 

mal-adjustment  of,  to  democracy 104,  106 

new  problem  of 87-125 

new  world-  . . .  . 19-36 

selfishness  in 100-104 

and  type  of  civilization 88,  89 

Investments,  foreign 44,  45 

"I.  W.  W."     (Industrial  Workers  of  the  World) 120-124 

Jack,  Captain 219,  220 

James,  President 78 

Jay,  Hon.  John 40 

Jones,  Dr.  J.  P. . .  . . 191 

Judiciary,  conservatism  of  the 215-222 

Kant,  Immanuel 49,  54 

Keen,  Dr.  W.  W 71 


288  INDEX 

Keller,  Helen 187,  188 

Kidd,  Benjamin 94 

King,  President  Henry  C 190 

note 241 

Knowledge,  the  new 58-74 

Kropotkin,  Prince 25,  26,  143 

Labor  displaced  by  machinery 118,  1 19 

to  be  controlled  by  unskilled  element 120 

La  Follette,  Senator 216 

Laissez-faire 77 

Laws,  a  labyrinth  of 225 

evils  of  conflicting 225 

Lawlessness,  problems  of 203-222 

Lazear,  Doctor 69 

Legislation  by  rule  of  thumb 226 

need  of  scientific 226,  227 

new  problem  of 91 

problem  of 222-227 

volume  of  recent 223,  225 

Lieber,  Prof.  Francis 183 

Lincoln's  wealth 152 

Lister,  Joseph 70 

London,  800,000  habitually  hungry  in 109 

Lynch  Law  defended 204,  205 

Lorillard,  Pierre ; 149 

Luxury,  peril  of 142-144 

Machinery,  automatic 119 

different  effects  of,  as  applied  to  agriculture  and  manu- 
factures     238,  239 

displacing  labor 118,  119 

influence  of,  on  character 120 

threatening  increase  of 111-115 

Malthusiasm,  mechanical 111-115 

Manufacturers  and  food  supply 35 

colonies,  and  navies 113,  114 

increasing  more  rapidly  than  population 112,  113 

Markham,  Edwin 83 

McKinley,  President 33 

McMasters 22 

Medicine,  new  preventive 67-70 

Mill,  J.  S 179, 198 

Minot,  Prof.  C.  S 61 

Moltke,  Field  Marshal  von 40,41 

Money  to  burn 146,  147 

Morgan,  wealth  controlled  by  J.  P 137,  141 

Mulford,  Dr.  Elisha 177 

Napoleon 37 

Nature,  changes  in  human 74    75 

Navies,  colonies  and  manufactures 113, 114 

Nelson,  Mr.  N.  0 98 

New  England's  sources  of  supply 23,  24 


INDEX  289 

New  York  City  as  a  prophecy 275-5283 

annual  budget 5276,  277 

churches,  hospitals,  schools 277 

clearing-house,  exports  and  imports 277 

factories 277 

philanthropies 277,  278, 

population 231,  232,  275,  276 

press 277,  278 

nationalities  in 278-280 

Oneness,  movement  toward 11-17 

Open  door  of  China 27-30 

Orient,  menace  of 161,  162 

Overproduction,  effects  of 251-256 

Panama  Canal  Zone,  sanitation  of 69 

Pasteur,  Louis 67,  70 

Patten,  Professor 4 

Peace,  a  new  world- 37-52 

Perry,  Professor 103, 104 

Peru,  ancient  civilizations  in 3 

population  of 172 

Phelps,  Hon.  E.  J 158 

Philadelphia,  philanthropies  of 77 

Plato 159 

Plantus 74 

Population  of  world 231 

in  tune  of  Emperor  Augustus 171 

Populations,  density  of 234 

Power,  vital  and  mechanical 127 

Problem  of  lawlessness 203-222 

legislation 222-227 

the  city 228-283 

the  individual  and  society 176-202 

the  new  race 159-175 

Production,  increasing,  and  popular  discontent 108-111 

Race,  age  of  the 57 

the  new  problem  of  the 159-175 

problem  of,  growing  more  complicated 159-175 

Races,  location  and  number  of 167 

new  problem  of  the 90, 91 

Railways,  influence  of 20,  23 

Richards,  Dr.  Timothy 162, 232 

Religions  of  Asiatic  origin 10,  11 

Rio  de  Janeiro,  Electric  Light  and  Power  Co.  of 138 

Rochefoucauld 52 

Rumely,  Mr.  E.  A 247.  248 

Russo-Japanese  War 160 

Saleeby,  Dr.  C.  W 188 

Schurman,  President  J.  G 151,  157 

Science, 58-74 

Selfishness 58,  76 

and  increasing  strikes 116-124 


290  INDEX 

in  Industry 100-104 

coming  results  of 108-125 

leading  to  an  industrial  impasse 111-115 

Seligman,  Professor 37 

Seneca 38 

Service  the  law  of  every  organism 96,  97 

Shiras,  Justice 219 

Slavery,  influence  of,  on  lawlessness 208 

Smallpox,  ravages  of 68 

Smiley,  Albert  K 51 

Smith,  Dr.  Arthur  H 28,  191 

Social  contract  theory,  our  government  based  on 214 

Socialist  vote 158 

Society,  ideal,  defined 56 

maladjustment  of  form 104-106 

spirit 95-104 

new  attributes  of 93 

evolution  of 92 

the  individual  and  society 176-202 

versus  the  individual 180,  181 

Socrates 53 

Spain,  the  fall  of 143 

Steam-engine,  influence  of 87 

on  commerce 20-23 

Strikes,  the  general 121-123 

Strikes,  influence  of,  on  machinery 112 

Sumner,  Prof.  William  G 136 

Surgery,  the  new 70,  71 

Syndicalism 120-124,  220,  221 

Tariff  walls 31-34 

Tennyson 57,  64 

Tendency,  a  new  world- 8-18 

Thompson,  Judge  Seymour  D 217 

Tolstoi,  Count  Leo 215 

Trades  unions 117 

Treasury,  loss  to  public  treasury,  note 55 

Tree,  the  family 183-185 

Tufts,  Professor 186 

Turkey,  populations  of 172 

Unemployed,  problem  of  the 244-249 

United  States,  lawlessness  in  the 203-222 

of  the  world 49-52 

possible  population  of 236 

steel  Corporation 136 

wealth  of 130-135 

Virgil 263 

War  advocated  by  militarists 40 

expenditure 44 

Ward,  Prof.  Lester  F 57 

note 95 

Waring,  Colonel « 147 


INDEX  291 

Washington 55 

Watson,  William 143 

Wealth,  concentration  of 135,  136 

influence  of  portable  wealth 89,  90 

science  on 127-129 

loss  of,  by  fire 129 

new  creation  of 126-130 

equivalents  of 135 

peril  of  concentrated 137-142 

perils  of 137-158 

power  of 135-136 

problem  of 89,  90.  126-158 

surplus  of 130-135 

of  United  States 130-135 

in  1960 134 

of  the  world  undeveloped 132,  133 

wallowing  in 146-149 

Weber,  Dr.  A.  F.,  note 241 

Webster,  Daniel 47,139 

Wheat  culture,  possibilities  of,  note 259 

White,  Hon.  Andrew  D 203,  207 

Wilson,  Dr.  Woodrow 78 

Workmen's  Compensation  Act 213 

World's  wealth  undeveloped 132,  133 

World-ideal,  a  new 53-83 

industry,  a  new 19-36 

peace,  a  new 37-52 

population  of  the 171,  231 

tendency,  a  new 8-18 

united  States  of  the 49-52 

Wright,  Hon.  Carroll  D 108,  114,  115,  131 

Yates,  Doctor 191 

Yellow  fever,  ravages  of 68 


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